by Pat Walsh
William nodded and ran off to find Prior Ardo and his hoop of keys. He found him in the cloister, looking out across the empty herb garden. His thin face was folded into tired lines of dejection and there was a faraway look in his eyes. William stood beside him for a few moments, but the prior did not seem to notice him.
“A cart has just arrived,” William said loudly, “bringing Master Bone’s possessions.”
The prior blinked a couple of times, then glanced down at William with a frown. “No need to shout, boy, I’m not deaf.”
William reddened. “Brother Stephen sent me to fetch the keys to the guest chambers,” he mumbled.
The prior’s frown deepened. “And there’s no need to whisper, either.” He took two keys from the iron hoop hanging from his belt and handed them to William. “Make sure you give them back to me when you’re finished with them.”
The prior turned and walked away, his black habit flapping around his bony ankles and the soles of his boots rasping on the stone paving. He bowed his head to pass under the archway leading to the stairs up to the abbot’s rooms.
William knew from Brother Snail that Abbot Simon was edging closer to death by the day. William had watched him mix ever-stronger potions to try to ease the abbot’s pain, but the monk admitted he could do nothing to help the dying man now. It was no wonder Prior Ardo looked more grim-faced than usual.
William unlocked the cloister door of the guest chamber and hurried across to the yard door. It took a few moments to turn the large iron key in the lock, but at last he managed it and lifted the latch. Brother Stephen and the carter were waiting in the yard, stamping their feet on the icy cobbles and rubbing their hands together to try to warm them.
“Gi’s a hand with the unloading, boy,” the carter said. He glanced at the monk. “Tha’s all right, in’t it?”
Brother Stephen nodded. “Very well, but be as quick as you can. The boy has enough work of his own to do.” He left them to it and went back to the byre.
William helped the carter take Master Bone’s possessions from the back of the cart and carry them through to the guest chambers.
Amongst the boxes, chests, and rolled-up wall hangings, there were four musical instruments, each one inside a leather or cloth bag. There was a lute, a recorder, and two flutes, one of silver and one of finely carved dark red wood.
William took the lute from its bag and gazed at it in wonder. He had seen the shawms, lutes, and hurdy-gurdies of the village mummers and waits in Iwele, but they were plain and ordinary next to this wonderful instrument. The golden grain of the wood glowed in the light coming through the open doorway. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
He plucked the strings, one at a time. The pure sound shivered on the cold air and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. In that moment, he knew he wanted, more than anything he had ever wanted in his whole life, to be able to make music. He wanted to play a lute like this one.
William sighed and returned the instrument to its bag. That was never going to happen. He was an orphan without a penny to his name. Lutes and the music they made were not part of his world.
Carefully, William laid the lute on the table, out of harm’s way. He hurried out to the yard to help the carter drag the posts and frame of a huge bedstead down from the back of the cart, and carry them indoors.
The bed was decorated with carvings of fantastic animals, the like of which William had never even imagined before. He traced the outline of a horse with a single horn growing from the middle of its forehead, and he smiled. How strange! And below it was a winged creature with a long tail and curved claws, its body twisting around one of the posts. Peering closer, William realized there were flames coming from the creature’s open mouth.
“Stop idling, boy, and take t’other end of this ’fore me back breaks,” the carter called.
William looked around and saw the carter struggling with a huge oak chest, which was balanced on the edge of the cart and in danger of sliding forward and crushing him. William hurried over to help, and between them they lowered it onto the cobbles.
“Ee, that were a bugger,” the carter gasped, wiping the sweat from his face with his sleeve. He sat on the chest for a few moments to catch his breath.
“Don’ s’pose there’d be any chance of some beer and summat to eat?” the carter asked hopefully.
“Ask him,” William said, nodding toward Brother Martin, who had just emerged from the kitchen and was standing in the yard nearby, watching them, hands on hips, lips drawn back in a snarl, and a distinctly unfriendly glitter in his single eye.
“Mebbe later,” the carter said hurriedly. He got to his feet and grabbed a basket from the cart.
William eyed Brother Martin warily. The monk pointed at him and yelled, “You slackin’ again, soldier? I’ll have ye strung up by the heels and skinned . . .”
“I told him to help the carter,” Brother Stephen called, walking across the yard toward them, wiping his hands on a wisp of straw. Fresh manure steamed on the pile beside the byre, and bits of straw and manure clung to the monk’s boots. “Peter can help with the vegetables today.”
Brother Martin did not take his eyes off William, but he did not argue. Cursing under his breath, he turned and stumped back into the kitchen.
“Master Bone certainly has a great many possessions,” Brother Stephen said in mild surprise as he looked through the doorway. “Are those musical instruments in those bags?”
“Yes,” William said with a smile.
The monk frowned. “Prior Ardo won’t tolerate music being played for pleasure.” He managed to make the last word sound like a cardinal sin.
William turned away and his mouth hardened into a straight line. It was one more thing he did not understand about the monks, this dislike of music other than their own sung masses and psalms. It was as if the sight and sound of people dancing and singing for the sheer joy of it was offensive to God. He thought of Master Bone’s lute and wondered how anyone, be it monk, man, or God himself, could possibly be offended by any sound that wonderful instrument might make.
“But I am sure Master Bone will respect the sanctity of the abbey while he is with us,” the monk added, “and keep his silence.”
Brother Stephen set off in the direction of the goat-pen. William watched him go and felt a flicker of anger. He hoped Master Bone would play his lute whenever he chose and send its golden notes dancing through the dark and silent rooms of the abbey.
In the largest chest, there were coverlets of velvet in dark blue and crimson. William opened another chest and found sheets of fine linen.
“Master Bone must be very rich indeed,” William said, picking up a goose-down pillow and holding it against his face. Sleeping on bedding like this would be like floating on a cloud.
The carter merely grunted. He did not seem in the least bit impressed by the finery around him.
There were other boxes and baskets tied up with rope, whose contents William could only guess at.
How could one man own so much? And why did some people have goose-down pillows and lutes, while others had nothing apart from their name and the clothes on their backs?
By mid-afternoon, the cart was unloaded and Master Bone’s bed pieced together. The carter did not waste his breath asking Brother Martin for something to eat and drink before he set off back to Weforde. He merely commented to William, as he glanced at the kitchen door, “Miserable bugger, ain’t he?”
William locked up the guest chamber and went to look for Prior Ardo, to return the keys. As he searched the abbey for the prior, all he could think of was the lute. He remembered something his brother Hugh had said, just before he had gone to London: “If you want something badly enough, Will, you’ll find a way to get it. Might take a while, but you shouldn’t stop trying, not until your last breath.” Hugh had been talking about making his fortune in a distant town, but his words applied just as well to William’s newfound desire to make music.
/> William found the prior standing by the foot of the stairs to the abbot’s quarters, talking to Brother Gabriel. He caught the last snatch of their conversation before they noticed him.
“. . . we can’t afford to turn him away,” the prior said.
“But what shall we do when the others find out?” Brother Gabriel said, sounding flustered.
“We will worry about that when the time comes, which we must hope will be after he has paid the abbey the money he promised . . .” The prior saw William and broke off. He glared at the boy. “What do you want?”
William held out the keys. “We’ve unloaded Master Bone’s possessions and I’ve locked up.”
The prior took the keys. “Go about your work, and don’t let me catch you listening in on conversations that do not concern you again, or you will be punished.”
“I wasn’t!” William said, stung by the unfairness of his words.
“Do not argue with me, boy!”
William scowled and walked away. He turned down the passageway beside the chapter house and set off across the garden. By the time he reached Brother Snail’s workshop, his anger had faded and he had begun to wonder what it was the prior and Brother Gabriel were trying to hide from the other monks.
The hob was sitting by the fire, poking the embers with a stick and humming softly to himself. There was a small pile of hazelnuts on a hearthstone, their shells blackened from being roasted in the fire. He carefully chose four and held them out to William. “I saved these for you.”
“Thank you,” William said, touched by this generosity. Hazelnuts were the hob’s favorite food. He sat on the floor and cracked the shells with his teeth.
“Where did you get these?” William asked, hoping they weren’t from the abbey storeroom.
“I found them.”
“Where?”
“They were hidden in a hole in an apple tree near the snail brother’s hut. By a squirrel.” There was a gleeful expression on his small face. “A hungry squirrel.”
For a few minutes, they sat in companionable silence, eating the hazelnuts and gazing into the fire. William’s thoughts turned to Master Bone’s lute. One day, people will sit and listen to me play an instrument like that, he thought with a deep certainty. They’ll nod and agree that they’ve never heard anything so wonderful before. I don’t know how, or when, but I will make it happen somehow.
CHAPTER
NINE
St. Clement’s Day was wrapped in a shroud of fog. The abbey, a cheerless place at the best of times, was gloomier and chillier than usual. The fire in the kitchen burned sullenly that morning and seemed reluctant to part with any heat. William riddled the embers and broke up a couple of branches to add to it. He crouched beside the hearth and watched as small flames licked the new wood.
There was a tight knot of excitement in his stomach. Master Bone was due to arrive sometime that day. William thought of the musical instruments, waiting for their owner in the guest chambers, and he smiled gleefully. Perhaps now the endless silence of the abbey would be broken occasionally, and he might finally hear the golden lute being played.
William’s first task of the day, after seeing to the fire, was to fetch water from the well in the yard and take it to the kitchen and the monks’ lavatorium in the west cloister alley, where they washed their hands and faces before going through to the frater to eat. After that he would take a pail to Brother Snail’s workshop. Today, there would be one extra trip to the well, to fetch water for the guest chambers.
By the time the monks filed into the chapter house for the daily meeting, William had delivered water to the lavatorium and the guest chambers and had hung a cauldron of water to heat over the kitchen fire. He carried a pail of water up the day stairs to the reredorter beside the monks’ dormitory, where he washed the wooden seats of the latrines. He poured the last of the water away, down into the drain that ran below the row of small wooden stalls and out into the river. A thin stream had long ago been diverted to run through the drain, to flush it out, but even so, Peter still had the all-too-frequent job of cleaning out the drain itself. William would sooner be thrown out of the abbey and left to starve than crawl through that fetid stone tunnel, clearing away the buildup of human waste. He and Peter had to make do with the small wattle-walled latrine hut on the far side of the yard. Peter had to clear out the cesspit beneath that, too.
William set off to take a pail of water to the workshop. The fog drifted like a mournful ghost through the trees on the edge of the abbey vegetable garden. Beyond the trees, the world faded to nothing. The cawing of the crows, high up in the branches of Two Penny Copse, sounded far-off and eerie.
In the monks’ graveyard, beyond the wattle garden fence, Peter Borowe stood, a dark shape in the fog, staring at the ground. Even from this distance, William could see the unhappy droop of Peter’s shoulders. He set the pail down on the path and walked over to see what the lay brother was doing.
Peter stood beside the shallow beginnings of a grave, shovel in hand. He looked at William but said nothing. There was no wave or smile today. William could see the trail of tears on Peter’s mud-streaked cheeks. His thick brown hair was lank from the damp fog.
William looked down into the dark scrape at his feet. “Whose grave is this?” he asked.
“It’s for Abbot Simon.”
William stared at him in shock. Abbot Simon was dead? Shouldn’t the passing bell be ringing? “When did he die?”
Peter shook his head. “He’s still alive. Prior Ardo thought it would be wise to dig the grave before the ground freezes again, just to be ready.”
“Why isn’t he being buried in the chapter house?” William asked, puzzled. It was where all of Crowfield’s abbots were buried. William had glimpsed the stones marking the graves through the doorway, carved with crosses and letters and set amongst the red and white floor tiles.
Peter shook his head again. “Abbot Simon wanted to be out here, in the sunlight and air, not laid beneath cold stone in the darkness.”
William opened his mouth to say that the abbot would hardly be in the light wherever he ended up, and that it surely wouldn’t matter much one way or the other, but thought better of it. Peter was upset enough without William adding to it.
The sight of the pile of brown earth on the ground beside the grave gave William a tight feeling in his chest. For a few moments he was back in the churchyard in Iwele, standing beside the four heaps of newly dug earth that covered the graves of his family. He had been too numb to feel anything that day. It was only later, when life in the village had moved on and returned to normal, that the pain started. It washed over him now in a wave of raw grief, catching him off guard. He quickly blinked away the tears that blurred his eyes.
He would not feel anything when the abbot died because he had never really known him, but Peter would. Abbot Simon had taken Peter in when he was a child and had shown him great kindness and patience, by all accounts. William felt sorry for the lay brother, but there was nothing he could do to lessen his pain. It was something everyone had to face sooner or later.
“Will,” Peter said suddenly, nodding to something behind William, “look.” William glanced around and saw a large white crow standing on the path a few paces away. One blue-gray eye watched him intently. He was sure it was the same bird he had seen here the other evening. It showed no fear and made no attempt to move off the path. William waved a hand at it, in the hope it would hop or fly away, but it did not move.
Peter squatted down and whistled softly to the crow. The bird’s sharp gaze flicked from William to the lay brother. Peter whistled again. He looked up at William with a puzzled frown.
“He wants you to follow him.”
“It told you so, did it?” William asked, grinning.
Peter nodded. “You have to go with him now.”
William looked down into Peter’s face for a few moments and realized he was being entirely serious. “I didn’t hear it say anything.”
&nbs
p; “I didn’t hear him in words,” Peter said. He tapped the side of his head. “It is just a kind of knowing in here.”
The crow waited patiently. Its head was turned so one eye stared unblinkingly up at William.
“Where does it want to take me?” William asked, a vague feeling of unease beginning to creep over him.
Peter stood up and shrugged. “I don’t know, Will. He didn’t tell me that.”
William took a step toward the crow. The bird moved a little way along the path with an odd little hoppity-skip and then stopped again. It continued to watch William beadily, a fierce expression in its eyes. William picked up the pail of water for the workshop and followed the crow cautiously along the path. The crow stayed a few steps ahead, hopping and walking by turns, and disappeared around the corner of the hut.
William paused by the rainwater barrel. The bird’s strange behavior made him feel uneasy and he wondered what waited for him behind the hut. He glanced back at Peter. The lay brother was still standing by the partially dug grave, watching him anxiously. Taking a deep breath, William walked around the corner.
The crow stood on the bench outside the hut door, where Brother Snail sometimes sat on warm days in the dappled shade of the blackthorn tree. A few paces away stood a woman. He was sure he knew most of the villagers from Weforde and Yagleah, by sight at least, but he had never seen her before.
The hem of her green woollen cloak was damp and muddy, as were her scuffed leather boots, and she leaned heavily on a hazel stick. She was small and neat of build. Her hair was hidden under a linen hood tied beneath her chin, and her weather-browned face was finely webbed with wrinkles. But it was her eyes that held William’s attention. One eye was pale milky blue and the other one was light brown — unsettling eyes that stared at him as if seeing beneath his skin. The crow leaned forward and gave a harsh caw.
The woman’s head turned toward the crow. “Keep watch, Fionn. Warn me if any of the holy brothers approach the hut.” She said the words “holy brothers” contemptuously. The bird rose into the air with a rustling flap of its glossy white wings and glided away over the hut roof.
