The Hour Before Dawn

by Penelope Wilcock

  “Open your mouth,” she said. “By heaven, they did not leave you much, did they? Adam, where’s your handkerchief?”

  Without thinking, she used her brother’s baptismal name, and he moved to wipe the saliva that ran from Oswald’s mouth.

  “Thank you. I’ve seen what I need to,” she said abruptly. “Sit down.”

  John returned miserably to his seat. Madeleine watched as William proffered his arm. Oswald slipped his hand through and was led easily back to his stool. “That’s better,” she remarked. She hung the lantern back on its hook and sat down.

  “We shall need some dwale,” she said, “and I do not know at all if Sister Bede has the ingredients. For one thing we need the gall of a boar—not of a gilt—which should be fresh. It can be obtained when a beast is butchered, but it’s a matter of finding who has one and when they will be slaughtering. Certainly they owe me more than a few favours in the village, and I think there will be those who would be right glad to do what they might think will appease me, since I am alive and possessed of an excellent memory. I had not meant to disclose that I am here though; what if they come for me again? If they know the community is harbouring me, the safety of the whole house might be put in jeopardy. Anyway, I can ask in our infirmary, but I’m sure that will be one ingredient we are lacking. Of course, Sister Thomas might be willing to slaughter our boar, but it’ll mean we have to buy another, else we’ll have no piglets, and they do us well for a steady bit of income. I’ll ask her, but be prepared to accept that she might say no. In similar wise I have not seen hemlock in Sister Bede’s dispensary, but I can look, and I know where we can get it if she has none.” Madeleine frowned, considering the situation. The challenge it presented had rekindled the habit of a lifetime’s healing work, in spite of the trauma that had locked her soul away. She had been a healer far longer than she had been a broken victim, and the roots of familiarity grew deep. “Bryony, vinegar, henbane, and lettuce we have,” she continued. “Once I can mix the dwale, I am willing to proceed. Without it, I will not. I am changed now. I cannot bear to hurt him, stitching without medicine. Brother—”

  She suddenly stopped in what she was saying to John, as if some pestering thing had finally caught her attention, and turned her gaze very directly toward William, searching his eyes with hers. “What’s the matter with you? Are you angry with me for some reason? You have never met me before, except only the once, but you look as though you hate me.”

  His composure unruffled by this bald confrontation, William considered her calmly. “I think I do not hate you,” he said thoughtfully, “though at this moment I admit it, I am not far off.” His eyes assayed her unhurriedly. “I am not angry. Something has to be important to arouse anger. I have seen enough to know that none of us is in any real sense important. But it offends me—and hurts me, I confess—to watch you torture your brother. He has been good to me. He has saved my life, sheltered me from violence and deserved animosity. Last time we were here you walked out and left a sobbing heap of pulverized humanity for me to pick up, and I see you are ready with another lashing this evening. You have been through hell? So have I. So has Oswald. Get over it. It wasn’t John’s fault. He wasn’t there for you? Nay, nor was I, nor any other man. He is your brother, not your husband. Since you ask.”

  Madeleine’s lips tightened as he spoke until they were bloodless. “Did I hear it said that you wanted my help?” she asked after a moment, her voice hard. The question hung in the air as a threat. William faced it with equilibrium.

  “Aye, but not enough to grovel for it, nor yet to stand aside while you punish somebody who never hurt you, because you have run away from those who did.”

  His cool gaze held hers. His eyebrows lifted. “Are you going to tell us now that Oswald can go through a fresh hell because I answered your straight question with a straight answer and your amour propre has taken a bit of a tumble?”

  John rubbed his brow, looking slightly desperate. “Stop it, William,” he said. “Please stop it. If I can get the gall and the hemlock—if you will tell me where to ask—will you help us, Madeleine? Please. Not for me, not for William; God knows he has enemies all over England. Just for these poor, swollen eye sockets that need protection from dirt and flies, and to give this man some dignity back and clothe him with compassion. Madeleine? Please. Don’t let the whole of life be about people hurting each other simply because they can. I will seek out the things you need without letting anyone know you are here.”

  “Please help me,” Oswald enunciated as clearly as he could, and that brought silence.

  “I will ask tonight about the hemlock and the pig. If the answer is no, you must go and search out gall and hemlock at first light, Adam, so I can mix the dwale in the morning. Then we shall have good midday light to work with. I will make a room ready with everything else we need. And, Adam, if you are wise, you will take Sister Mary Cuthbert with you if you need to go into the village to ask for a pig—and leave this William behind. The people love Mary Cuthbert. She does not antagonize them.”

  John’s eyes met hers. “Father William,” he said very softly.

  The faintest smile touched Madeleine’s face, but not her eyes. “Ah, yes, Father,” she said, “to show I respect him.”

  Oswald sat as he was, his head cocked and his body motionless, still using every sense he had to feel the dynamics of the conversation. William bent his head, withdrawing from the interaction, for which he had no further use. John looked steadily at his sister. In a movement so slight it was hard to discern, he shook his head. Seeing it, the assurance in her face faltered a little.

  “I will ask dear Mother’s permission before Compline for all we have discussed,” said Madeleine less truculently, “but I cannot think she will refuse us. Except maybe the pig. I hope you will join us for Compline if you are not too tired. Other than that, God give you good night, Father John, Father Oswald, Father William.”

  William looked up then, and John was surprised and relieved to catch a flash of amusement pass between them. For his own part, though he saw confrontation to be occasionally necessary and bravely faced, he never enjoyed it; it was never a game. But he recognized that he had witnessed an odd apology given and accepted.

  Mother Mary Beatrix gave her permission for their enterprise and spoke briefly to Abbot John before Compline to affirm this was so. “Madeleine has explained that the gall of a boar is necessary to make the medicine needful for the procedure she must do. I understand that your time is precious, Father John, and I will not hear of your walking the country round about in search of an animal for slaughter when we have one in our own orchard. It is the least we can do for your poor brother priest who has been so savagely hurt. We will gladly give you our pig, and Sister Mary Cuthbert will be going straight after first Mass to the cottage of the man who looks after the butchering of animals for us. Madeleine has told me that all should be ready for when the sun is at its height, and so it shall be.”

  “Dear Mother, how can I thank you for your kindness? You must at least let us pay you for the pig—no, really you must. We will give you what is necessary to replace a boar good for breeding. God reward you. We are so very grateful.”

  It felt strange to sit in the nave of the church while the community gathered in the choir. For so many years his stall in choir had been an essential part of home to John. On his travels when he had to beg hospitality, if he stayed at a monastery he would usually find a community of men. He had stayed with nuns before but very rarely. Even so, though he sat in the parishioners’ benches in the nave, he felt welcome, and the generosity and loving-kindness of these sisters warmed his heart.

  “We can begin to set you right again now, my brother,” said John to Father Oswald as they retired to the guest house when the last prayers were said and the Salve Regina sung. “This will protect your sockets and make you look tidy. Do you know what the dwale is?”

  Oswald shook his head.

  “’Tis a medicine that will send
you to sleep while we do the stitching, so that we shall not hurt you as we work. And when you wake up, its effects will gentle any soreness there is at first. So you will not feel what we do.”

  “Thank you!” Oswald used the sign language of the Silence, and for extra emphasis he pressed his palms together and bowed his face to his fingertips.

  After he had seen Oswald safely and comfortably into his bed, though they were now in silence John crossed the long room to the bed on which William sat unlacing his boots.

  “Yes, Father? You wanted to talk?”

  “Only for a moment. I want to beg your pardon for my sister. This is not like her. She is the kindest, most joyous soul. I think the savagery worked upon her has driven her into a place she cannot come back from. Though mind you, she has always been very forthright, very direct in both question and comment. That’s the healer’s way; you have to be. My mother was the same.”

  “Candid suits me,” replied William, “and I’ve no doubt she and I can find our way to some sort of accommodation. You need have no dread there will be fisticuffs when we go into the enclosure tomorrow. But…” He hesitated, then said, completely serious now, “I owe you so much. It was more than I could do to stand by and see those barbed arrows find their mark in your heart. Beyond that, she can say what she likes about me. Why should I care?”

  John nodded. “Go gently though, in the way you answer her. Take the long view. The day will arrive eventually when she emerges out of this state of mind and comes to terms with all that befell her. When she finds her new equilibrium, she will have forgotten she was so hard, for my guess is, she does not feel hard inside, only hurt and beleaguered. I think the pain she inflicts is a measure of the pain she feels. Our part is to understand and be forgiving. If I can receive patiently the hurt she dishes out, that may wick it away from her soul a little and help her recover. If I recognize what is happening, it makes it easy for me to forgive. The thing we have to hold before us is the remembrance that this is a molten time when new things are forged. If we offer her gentleness and understanding now, we can forge healing. If we meet what she dishes out with resentment and indignation, we shall forge enmity, when what is in flux cools into the new way she will be. Am I… do you grasp what I mean?”

  “Father John,” replied William, “as I travel with you, I am surprised by finding myself grateful for the day St Dunstan’s burned down. I am proud to be a son of your house.” As he looked at him, his eyes shone with admiration. “Go to bed. We have work to do in the morning.”

  John smiled.

  “A son of my house? Ha! Any other brother would stand respectfully until I told him to go to bed! Nay, that’s no rebuke! Sleep well. Until the morning.”

  The light came streaming glorious through the east window above the choir altar as the three men sat in the parish side of the chapel waiting for the morrow Mass to begin after Prime. John and William watched Sister Mary Cuthbert as the mother abbess came to stand there, evidently with something to communicate.

  She listened and nodded and, as Mother Mary Beatrix returned to her stall, Mary Cuthbert in barefoot silence came back from the sanctuary to whisper to William, who sat at the end of the bench, “Dear Mother says she has asked of Sister Bede, and she has the hemlock.” If Mary Cuthbert felt any surprise at passing this message, her face did not betray it. “And she says that unless you tell her otherwise, she will let our parish priest know that Abbot John will celebrate first Mass for us tomorrow morning.”

  John, listening also, caught the quiet words and nodded his assent.

  “God reward you; we are honoured,” Mary Cuthbert murmured, smiling as she left them to prepare their hearts and minds for the Eucharist.

  She returned as Mass ended to stand respectfully near the bench where they sat, ready to escort them into the enclosure.

  Oswald took William’s arm, and they followed Mary Cuthbert into the Lady Chapel. She took them to a door, insignificant in appearance but securely locked, adjacent to the sanctuary. She drew from under her scapula a bunch of keys of impressive size and quickly selected the right one to open the door. With a nod and a smile, she stood aside to let them through into the enclosure, then closed the door behind them, and they heard her turn the key.

  While the enclosure door near the parlour would have allowed them into the claustral living quarters of the sisters, the way through the Lady Chapel took them out into a rose garden, in leaf but not yet in bloom at this time of year. For a moment John could hardly see as he emerged from the cool dimness of the chapel into the spring morning rioting with birdsong and dazzling sunlight.

  In only a minute Madeleine appeared around the tall yew hedge to find them. “Wes hal, fathers. I trust you slept well?”

  John felt relieved to find her manner less cold, if still reserved. He could sense the intense focus of her energy as she held herself in readiness for what she had to do. For now at least, her mind was no longer haunted by vivid memories of trauma, nor preoccupied with anger, terror, or distress; just for this day she was a skilled healer again, responding to someone else’s pain with a lifetime’s mastery of knowledge and practice.

  “If you will follow me, the infirmary lies up yonder slope, just at the end of this path and at the foot of the hill that leads up to the burial ground. We are all prepared. Sister Thomas shed tears for her pig, but she brought me the gall bladder in a bowl, and the bile is mixed in with the rest.”

  As they came to the low infirmary building, built of the same honey-coloured stone as St Alcuin’s, Madeleine stopped, looking up to see the lark whose song she could hear in trilling cascades as it climbed into the dizzy blue of the cloudless sky. “’Tis so high! Can you see it, Adam?” She forgot her stance of aloofness as her eye searched out the bird, habits of joy in life and easy familiarity for that moment reasserting themselves, bringing back the person she had always been. Oswald stood listening, his head tilted to one side, while John and William squinted up with Madeleine into the brightness of the heaven.

  William shaded his eyes with his hand, his head tipped back as he stood entranced, watching the bird mount up and up and up, always singing. All his life he had loved the wild freedom of the rising flight of the lark. Enthralled, he did not notice as Madeleine recalled herself to the purpose of her visit, leaving the spilling exuberance of music to the sweetness of blue. “What?” he said defensively when his attention returned to what they were about and realized Madeleine was observing him with focused curiosity.

  “Round your neck,” she said quietly, “you have a faint mark. Have you been hanged?”

  Oswald became totally still at those words. John moved in sudden consternation. “Oh God!” said William, brought sharply back to earth. “It never pays to let your vigilance slip for an instant, does it? Anywhere!”

  For the first time since he had known him, John saw William obviously and completely caught off his guard. “Yes, I have been hanged,” he ground out bitterly, resenting the intrusion of the question, “but not by the hand of others.”

  “You tried to hang yourself?”

  John wished Madeleine would not pursue this, but the question was asked now. Oswald remained completely still, his apprehensions about the hour ahead forgotten. He’d had no inkling before this of anything that had happened to William after St Dunstan’s fire.

  “How else do you think anyone hangs who is not hanged by somebody else?”

  “Oh, plenty of ways! There are all manner of accidents. But not in your case? And this was quite recent, I see, or you would not still have the mark. Maybe six weeks ago?”

  “Aye, about that. Madam, I will answer as many impertinent questions as you have to fire at me later when we have leisure. But while the sun is high, should we not remember what we are here to do?”

  “Indeed. In any case, though I perceive you might taste acid in anyone’s mouth, I can find no whiff of despair about you now. The thing that drove you to this act—it is healed then?”

  John looked a
side, acutely embarrassed by her persistence, but William looked her in the eye. “It is healed,” he answered her. “I have shelter from the storm.”

  She nodded, satisfied for the moment. “That’s well then,” she said briskly, “so we don’t have to worry about you. Let’s go to our task, as you say. Sister Bede has lit us a fire. I know it’s hot, but Father Oswald must be really warm. The more he has to make him drowsy, the less hemlock I need to put in. The less hemlock I put in, the less likelihood I shall kill him by mistake. To this end I have begged from Sister Paul a slug of mead to mix in with the wine—and the wine is sweet and heady anyway.”

  John saw that though Oswald stood quietly, the mention of a possibility of killing him registered in his face. Though years of monastic discipline enabled him to retain composure, his hands half-hidden from view at his sides in the folds of his habit began clenching and unclenching despite his best efforts to appear relaxed.

  “Don’t be afraid: my sister’s bedside manner has more terror than kindness,” John joked gently, putting his hand on Oswald’s back, stroking him in a soothing motion that brought a sudden shaky sigh from Oswald as the anxiety decreased a fraction. “You will be in good hands. It is better for you to sleep through this. Don’t be afraid. I shall be with you. And while you sleep, and Madeleine and I work on your eyes, William and all these good sisters will hold you fast in their prayers. Don’t be afraid.”

  Oswald nodded. He lifted his hand to wipe away saliva that he felt trickling. John saw that his hand was trembling.

  “Let’s get to it then. Come inside,” said Madeleine, who had also seen the signs of dread. “Yes, you too, Father William, you might be useful. I cannot think that much disturbs you.”

  William looked at her, hesitating. “Not much,” he said, “but I confess if I have to watch what you are about to do, I am likely to pass out. I cannot… Well; no, thank you.”