The Atwelle Confession

by Joel Gordonson

  “I need your advice,” the priest said to Peter after a moment. Without looking up, Peter gave a low grunt in response while he continued chewing.

  “I met today with Richard Lanham to ask for his financial support for the roof and stained glass in the new church. He did not give it.”

  Peter stopped chewing and looked at Father Regis.

  “Church!” he repeated in a monosyllabic exclamation.

  “He is worried about whether his salt mines will be profitable, particularly since their success is dependent on whether the sea access to Atwelle can be turned into a port and make it a market town for the region.”

  “Atwelle!” repeated Peter with exuberance.

  “Whether that happens depends on the competition between Lanham and DuBois. Each of them wants to be the key power if the town becomes a flourishing commercial center and port. And neither wants the port to be successful if it increases the power and influence of the other. So they both desire the port to be a success, but yet do not want it to be the other’s achievement. A rather odd situation, is it not?”

  Peter, with a mouth full of stew, nodded vigorously.

  “Lanham is also concerned about the worsening relationship between King Henry and the Holy Church in Rome. He thinks a large contribution to the building of the new church could put him on one side or the other if the pope and king become openly opposed to one another.

  “But I know he’s a king’s man. After all, the king has provided the money for the development of his mines. But that also puts him in a difficult situation since his son has just decided to become a monk.”

  “Monk!” echoed Peter.

  “I am also sure that he’s worried about his support for the king, because DuBois favors the pope. So if the pope predominates in any conflict with the king, DuBois is in a position to assert control in the shire, including the inland port. Good play, that. It would mean DuBois becomes wealthier from expanding his trade of his own crops and wool and also from the shipments of Lanham’s salt.”

  Father Regis gave Peter a look of grave concern. Peter mimicked the concerned expression in his own face until the priest looked away and he was free to reach for his ale.

  “But I have to confess to you, Peter, that I too am worried about the worsening tension between the Church and the king. I fear the implications of an open conflict to me personally as well as my plans for the new church. What do you think I should do?”

  “Church! King!” Peter repeated emphatically before he picked up the bowl of stew and licked it clean.

  Father Regis thought for a moment and then looked at Peter as the answer came to him.

  “Of course! Church and king. Right you are again, my friend. The new church will be protected if I can get both Lanham and DuBois to support the roof and window construction. In that case, the church construction will be finished regardless of the dispute over annulment of the king’s marriage. I must secure the equal support of both of them.

  “But how to get rivals to join together as major patrons of the church construction, especially when the king and Church are at odds?”

  The priest frowned, doubting that he could ever sort out an answer to his dilemma. He looked up to see Peter studying him with a look of concern through unwashed locks of hair. Father Regis smiled at Peter, so Peter smiled too.

  “All finished, Peter? Here you go then,” he said handing a broom to Peter.

  Father Regis watched Peter dutifully sweeping the floor of the priest’s cell. “We are so different, and yet so much alike,” he thought.

  He remembered back to the time years ago when he had returned to Atwelle after studying canonical law at Maryhouse Hall in Cambridge. He had great promise, all his tutors had told him. They had recommended him to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had then expressed an interest in furthering his career. There was even talk of a position in Rome. In the end, he shamefully admitted even now, he had doubted himself and his abilities, and ended up coming back to Atwelle as a parish priest.

  With a fond look, he watched Peter, who was merely moving the dust ineffectively around the floor with the broom. Peter, whom he had first seen years ago as a dirty little boy with a damaged mind, had always managed somehow to live with confidence on the street. A child unclaimed, but cared for by all.

  “We belong to no one, and yet to everyone, Peter,” thought Father Regis. “We are children of Atwelle, you and I. Our family is this town.”

  As Peter swept furiously at a corner, Father Regis shook his head at the irony. Peter had little intellect and yet lived with the comfort of complete self-acceptance, while he, a priest highly educated and admired by all, was often tortured by continual self-doubt. Father Regis once again resolved that just as he had given his life in service to Atwelle, so he would give the town the new church it needed and deserved. “You will not doubt your abilities,” he admonished himself with jaws clenched. “You have a purpose.”

  “Peter,” the priest interrupted him. Peter stopped and looked up from his task.

  “Thank you,” said Father Regis with a look of genuine fondness.

  “Peter!” he answered, echoing his name joyfully as he began sweeping the room once more.

  2017 The large door to St. Clement’s was already standing open when Margeaux returned to Atwelle a week later. She peeked in cautiously. In spite of the bright morning daylight outside, the interior of the church seemed unusually dark until Margeaux’s eyes adjusted, and light streaming through the stained glass windows beckoned her entrance. Her long scan down the nave revealed that she was alone. She was not surprised. Monday is a church’s day of rest.

  Margeaux walked slowly down the center aisle of the nave. After each step, she stopped and examined the walls and the ceiling of the church. The gray of the walls was interrupted with occasional unpleasant water stains. Although not of great height, the walls appeared taller because of the high arc of the roof above, which was constructed of wood so dark that its blackness seemed unending like the night sky.

  When she reached the front row of pews, Margeaux stopped to look at a large arrangement of flowers in a funeral wreath placed before the pew on the left side. She moved into a pew on the opposite side, where she sat very still for a few moments with her eyes closed. Anyone watching would have assumed that she was saying a traditional prayer communicating with God upon entering His house of worship. But this morning she was communing with His house rather than with Him.

  Her whole being, not just her body, felt enveloped by the surrounding stillness of the ancient church. No movement. No noise. It was a contemplative quiet that made the world outside seem all the more frantic, loud, and out of control. The stone walls stood strong and silent, providing a sense of impenetrable protection from the mayhem created by mankind.

  The air seemed not to move at all. Like most old churches, it was cooler than the hot days and warmer than the cold days outside. But never quite comfortable. Damp without being moist. It was as if the air Margeaux was breathing had lingered in the church from the day five centuries earlier when the space was consecrated.

  The ambient light seemed to come neither from the inside nor the outside. Shadows simply happened from uncertain sources. But when the sun touched the windows, the color and patterns of the stained glass were transformed magically into a message for upturned eyes. When the sun disappeared, the stories told by the glass disappeared as if behind a closed book cover. Then the golden glow of the church’s candles would hint at the stories in the windows that were still there to be read with the sun of another day.

  Margeaux stroked the smooth wood of the pew. She felt its hardness where it bore the weight of her body. For no reason other than the physical experience, she pulled down the kneeler and came to her knees as if to pray. It too was hard and uncomfortable. The thought occurred to Margeaux that she had never once sat in a comfortable pew in any church. Was there an intended purpose for a pew to be so physically unpleasant? Was the discomfort meant to symbolize
something? Perhaps a form of mortification of the flesh that all worshipers should experience?

  From her prayerful pose, she looked at the altar. Historically, it was the place of blood sacrifice. Between two large ornate silver candlesticks, a large silver cross sat solidly at the center of the altar to symbolize the sacrifice of Jesus, God’s only Son—the act of ultimate selflessness and love that was to define His church. From the altar came the sacrificial body and blood of Jesus, which were consumed by his believers in the holiest of rituals. How ironic, Margeaux thought, that the religion from which Western civilization arose was based on a rite of symbolic cannibalism commanded by Jesus himself at the Last Supper. “Take and eat. This is my true body given for you.” Was this rite intended as the fullest expression of a person’s becoming one with God, Margeaux wondered.

  She rose from the kneeler and sat back on the pew. Her eyes once again circled the expanse of the church from floor to ceiling.

  “This is where life for a villager in Atwelle began,” she thought, “even before birth.”

  Couples were wed. Babies were baptized. Religious education was consummated with confirmation of one’s faith. Communion taken. Confessions given. Marriages blessed. Weekly worship and reminders of things one did not otherwise think about in life, but should.

  “And then here it ends,” she concluded. She looked over at the wilting flowers left over from the funeral. “With peace of mind in the protection of this sanctuary.” Protection. Sometimes real, sometimes imagined, she thought. Protection conditioned on faith. But protection none the less. Protection that mankind instinctively needs, and so picks this place, consecrates it, and seeks safety there for peace of mind.

  “Can my project in this place give me peace of mind?” Margeaux asked herself. It was an ancient but unremarkable church neglected for centuries by scholars and now by people who no longer worshiped. There were no obvious scholarly analytical challenges here from intricate glass windows of brilliant colors below grand arches of wondrous architecture that reflected the power and glory of the society in which it was built. “But there are lessons to be learned, mysteries to be solved, and rewards to be achieved,” she told herself, deciding once again to be optimistic. She picked up the binocular case she had brought with her and pulled its shoulder strap over her head. The lid snapped open, sending a small sharp echo through the silent church. Pulling the binoculars out, she then focused with great interest on the main stained glass window behind the altar.

  Margeaux’s gaze lingered on the window as she thought of her love for stained glass windows in ancient churches. How powerfully their light and colors told inspirational stories to illiterate parishioners for centuries—stories from the Bible or from the history of the church. The windows delivered those messages of beauty, wisdom, and power straight from God instead of through the filter of foreign words from a priest.

  But as she scanned the large stained glass window to the east, she found none of these messages. There was no apparent story. Most of the window, the bottom two tiers, were filled with a large circle of fading reddish color. When the light came through the tall panes of this colored glass, Margeaux felt as if she were immersed in a pool of blood.

  “The message of this window hardly seems religious,” thought Margeaux. “Why would there be so much red?”

  Above the expanse of faded red, however, were smaller panes of glass fragments forming a pointed arch at the top of the window. Margeaux peered at these fragments through her binoculars, desperately hoping to find something of interest. But outside of what appeared to be some heraldic crests, most of the detail in the glass panes was obscured by the accumulated grime of past centuries.

  “Odd place for bird watching.”

  Margeaux jumped up at the sound of a voice close by, and turned to find a man sitting in the pew behind her. She instinctively swung her binoculars at him in frightened self-defense. The man managed to lean back just far enough that the binoculars barely flew by his face. He held up his hands in surrender.

  “Whoa there! I’ve got nothing against bird watching. Honest.”

  He looked to be in his mid-thirties and had a pleasant face with smudges of dirt near his auburn brown eyes. His sandy hair looked like it was combed neatly in the morning with orders to stay in place and then left to fend for itself the rest of the day. As he stood up, Margeaux could see his tall, lean frame was dressed in workman’s clothes.

  “I’m told you’re Miss Wood.” He held out his hand. “I’m Donald Whitby, the architect in charge of the project to refurbish the church. But you can call me Don. No one else does.”

  Margeaux liked his winning smile at his own bad joke, but looked at his hand uncertainly. It was quite dirty.

  “Oh . . . sorry.” He attempted unsuccessfully to wipe off his hand on his shirt and held it out again. “I’ve been hanging out with dead people,” he said shaking her hand.

  Margeaux cringed inwardly as she quickly withdrew her hand from the briefest of handshakes. He noticed her discomfort.

  “I mean—what I should have said is that I’ve been down in the crypt under the altar.

  “Most people look up when they’re in a church. That’s what churches are designed to have them do.” He looked up at the stained-glass window that Margeaux had been examining and then across the dark wooden ceiling above. “But I look first at the foundations. It’s right down to the cellar for me. I always say, if the foundation isn’t doing what it’s supposed to, there’s not much hope for the bits on top.”

  His cheery smile and lighthearted observation hardly seemed like he was talking about an ancient church.

  “How do you do, Mr. Whitby. I’m Margeaux Wood.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Margeaux,” answered Don. He meant it. She was beautiful. “And do call me Don; otherwise I’ll think you’re talking to my father.”

  After she smiled at his comment, all he could think about was her dimples.

  “What is the crypt like?” asked Margeaux. “It’s the one place I think I haven’t actually seen in St. Clement’s.”

  Her question reminded him that they were still standing in a church.

  “I’m pleased to report that the foundations of this fine church are as solid as an architect could want. No worries from there about the bits on top here.”

  “What I meant was, is there a great marble sarcophagus of some lost saint down there or skeleton bones scattered about? Please tell me they are there.”

  “Neither are there, I’m afraid.” He noticed her look of disappointment. “But it’s quite dusty down there, if that helps.”

  When he saw that his attempt at humor had missed the mark and that she looked genuinely discouraged at his answer, he decided to give her more detail.

  “Actually, there are four stone coffins sitting above ground in the crypt. They’re an odd collection really, like the rest of this church.”

  He liked the way her face perked up with interest.

  “Would you like to hear more about them?”

  Watching her eager nod, he noticed how naturally pretty she was without wearing any makeup.

  “Well, the largest tomb is the resting place of a priest named Father Regis Hollowell. From my limited knowledge of the history of the church, I believe he was the priest here when the church was rebuilt in 1532. Not a saint though, at least not that anyone knows. Sorry.”

  He enjoyed the dimples from her smile once again.

  “The next largest sarcophagus is a bit more humble and its inscription unfortunately has been obscured. But it’s interesting that there is a brass sword inlaid on the top. The third coffin is unmarked and smaller than the other two, perhaps for a woman.

  “And the last coffin is plain and unremarkable except for a couple things. First, it’s a coffin used for a burial in a grave rather than a stone tomb for above ground. That may explain in part why it has no inscription of any sort. And from its size, it appears to contain a small child.” Don was glad to see that her
attitude of discouragment had been replaced by a slight furrow between her eyebrows, as if she were puzzling over a crossword clue.

  “Now, Miss Wood, I understand that you are here working on some research project while I’m to fix the leaks in the roof and, with an inadequate budget, keep this church going for another five centuries. Be honest with me, Miss Wood. You’re not really bird watching, are you?” “I’m here to study the whole church,” she replied. “And with no budget at present.”

  “Oh dear,” he murmured in a sympathetic voice. “And what exactly do you mean by ‘the whole church’? Sounds like a tall order.”

  Margeaux paused in thought. Don could see the excitement in her eyes.

  “There’s nothing about this church that strikes one as exceptional in any way. And yet, when you start listing a number of things in and about this church, the collection of elements appears to be quite idiosyncratic. And there’s no single or logical explanation for all these elements to come together in one place.”

  “Like what for instance?”

  “Well, you can start with the stained glass,” she pointed past the altar to the largest window. “Why is there such a vast expanse of fading red? And the same color is predominant in smaller stained glass throughout the church except for the two side chapels.”

  “Maybe they bought it at a sale price when they saw an advert,” Don speculated with a grin. “‘Available This Century Only!’”

  Margeaux gave him a mild scolding look for apparently not taking her seriously.

  “When you were entering the crypt behind the altar, did you notice the brass on the floor?” she asked.

  “How could I not?” he answered. “That knight with the long sword had the most remarkable mustache I’ve ever seen.

  “If it is a knight,” she replied. “There is no coat of arms or history suggesting his name, family, or station.