The Abbot's Tale

by Conn Iggulden

  There was more than one such revelation at Bath–and more at our second stop in Shropshire. Silver and lead are often mined together. The simplest theft was that the royal treasury never knew how many pounds of ore had been dug each year. Almost all the mines declared less than they dug out, then sold the extra silver to forgers and illegal mints the length and breadth of the country. The sheer scale of it all staggered me when I began to understand the numbers. I don’t think half of the gold and silver mined had ever reached the royal mints. There were more bad coins than good ones that year, though it began to change as our efforts made their mark.

  It took me another eighteen months before I felt happy with the results. We had to employ men as overseers and king’s officers in each mine, as well as making scales more accurate than any that had existed before, in high-quality brass and iron. Each set was identical and I made thirty of them for the royal office of treasurer, to be sent around the country. Finding so many good men was the hardest part of it, even after all the preparation we had done. I considered putting more men on our rolls to watch the first ones, but quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who guards the guards? There would always be corruption around gold and silver. My job was not to cut it out completely, but merely to reduce it to a level that did not leave the king having to go as a beggar to the monasteries and moneylenders. It took me a long time to understand that – and longer to accept it.

  I think I knew even then that I was working to an end, that I could not be royal treasurer for the rest of my life. The work raising the abbey at Glastonbury suffered badly while I laboured for Eadred – how could it not when I took all the men from the site? I felt a sense of shame when I returned to the abbey with Wulfric, seeing it almost abandoned, with weeds growing through the muddy yard.

  I did not give up my post as treasurer, however. I confess I tried to, but King Eadred was so pleased with all the gold and silver flowing into his treasury that he would not hear of it. He offered to make me bishop of Winchester and I refused, saying I would rather serve as a poor monk than as a prince of the Church. I think money meant even less to me than it ever had, after seeing it dug from the earth and made into coins. Every coin had some blood on it, but then this world is the forge where the metal of our souls is tested. It is not a land of milk and honey, but a dark field of battle. Some will show clean and good and they will be rewarded. The rest will be cast away to burn.

  Rather than own a thrall, I drew up papers to free Skinner and his son, returning them to the world in a rather better state than I had found them. I even arranged for a small pension to be paid to the man who had helped me overcome impossible obstacles. It was within my gift, but as I told him, my reason was to let him retire in small comfort. If I heard he had ever shared our adventures with another, or if he returned to his old work, I would visit much worse on him than he could imagine. He seemed to understand I was serious and he smacked his idiot son across the ear to make him show some respect.

  With that behind me, I returned to Glastonbury, to gather our little community around me, to bring them at last into the light.

  30

  The community of monks at Glastonbury had tripled in size in the years since I’d been a boy there. In part, I am sure it was because we fed the workers rather better and more regularly than they had known before. Some of them stayed for that, or turned their labours into a common feeling that led them to take vows. Not all have souls aflame with desire! The world is mostly made of sensible men. We cannot all be saints; most do not have the strength of will. They get by – and that can be enough for them. Yet those who lead them need passion and strength far beyond their followers. The shepherd must climb after every lost lamb. It is both exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. There have been years when I was weary, when I wished I could just hand it all over to another, but then, without exception, I remembered my path and I raised my head.

  When I returned to the isle, I recalled my vision from years before, of scores of monks in black robes, going in and out of grand cloisters. The cloisters were still unfinished, but King Eadred’s generosity meant the work would be completed. I’d lost count of the number of times I had been called upon to witness laws and papers or even discuss the king’s policies. I stood high in Eadred’s esteem and I took that confidence back with me to Glastonbury. It felt like home to me, as it always had, just about.

  I’d walked to my father’s house once or twice in the years since we’d left. My half-brother had fallen on harder times when some portion of his wealth was lost. It seemed Aldan had invested his trade success in some part of a silver mine, which may not have been quite properly owned. It had been confiscated by a right bastard of a royal officer, apparently. I hadn’t told him who it had been. Aldan was content enough on our father’s twelve hides of land. Old Threefingers had lost his mind and died not long after, with no one able to look after him in his rages and weeping. It is a sad thing when we are taken like that. I have always thought it is worse than death.

  I did not expect my task to be easy, when I told Brother Caspar I was considering enforcing the true rules of our founder, after centuries of neglect. St Augustine himself had been a Benedictine and established the first monastery in Canterbury on his arrival. Our order was the bedrock on which English Christianity was founded.

  It was within the bounds of my authority to order married brothers to turn their faces from their wives, yet even in my certainty, I suspected it could not be done with force. If I had to lose those men, it would be the will of God, but I wanted to persuade them first.

  I called them to the rough school hall we had made together. On the night I set aside, it was crammed to the edges by those who came to hear the discussion, including all the women who would be put out if I were successful. It seemed Prior Caspar, or more likely Aphra, had spread word of what I wished to discuss. I objected to the idea that the women might attend, but there were so many voices raised against me that I subsided. Very well. I would overcome them. I have always relished such a fight.

  Winter was upon us and the day grew dark as they shuffled and muttered to one another. I’d agreed to allow Caspar to speak for married men, though I had not seen he would stand as my equal and oppose me in front of a crowd that favoured his view over mine. We had the structures of Athenian debate to fall back upon – points and counterpoints, rebuttals, conclusion and the all-important vote.

  I cracked my neck and my knuckles as Caspar stepped up to a rostrum. I resisted the urge to pace behind him and remained seated, genuinely interested to see what he would say.

  ‘Brothers, we stand at a crossroads tonight,’ he began, his voice shaking. ‘We can go forward as we are, or take a path unknown. Our abbot, Father Dunstan, will argue that Christ was not married, that women are a distraction. I am sure he will make a dozen other points to build his wall to keep them out. To keep the mothers out, and the daughters – and of course the sons who might have been born to this monastery. It does not matter that the abbot is unmarried. Nor does it matter that I have a wife. Our small tales are nothing as we contemplate the Rule of our Benedictine order – and the future of all such orders. Yet perhaps it matters that the apostle Simon was married. In the gospel of Mark, we have the detail, so often overlooked: “ . . . but Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick of a fever.” And Christ went to her and raised her up well, so that she could tend to them. And much later, he called Simon and said unto him, “Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church – and the gates of hell will not prevail against thee.” Simon Peter, who had a mother-in-law, who was still Christ’s choice to be the first pope, the rock on which the Church is built, whose bones lie in Rome this hour. What greater sign can there be that priests and monks might marry without sin? What greater authority?’

  Caspar paused then and indicated me with his outstretched arm. ‘Abbot Dunstan will make clever and powerful arguments against, I do not doubt . . .’

  To my fury, someone in that place hissed at me! I
searched the rows for whoever had dared, seeing only a lot of bowed heads. Poor Caspar was unaware of their insolence and went on in that amiable way of his, never realising he had not moved the crowd as I would.

  ‘He will make his arguments from reason and from faith, yet in this I believe he has missed the path Christ chose for us when he raised Peter. That is my first point – I reserve my right of answer.’

  He sat down to nervous applause, no more than a crackle of it as I went to that same rostrum, looking out on the packed hall that stretched away. I had built half of that place with my own hands, sawing and hammering and cutting joints. I knew it as most of them did not, deep into the bones. I had intended a more scholarly debate, but I sensed that Caspar had done well. If he somehow forced a vote, I could lose. I changed plan. I led them in prayer and they bent their heads in silence. Perhaps they also remembered I was their abbot and father to them all.

  ‘This hall,’ I said at last, indicating it with a grand sweep of my arm, ‘that sits above the schoolrooms below, was built by us, by this community. It was the labour of months, with a year of seasoning the great beams before that, so they would not warp. And it was made in faith, for that thread that binds us all together in this ancient and holy place, that justifies the relicts we own, that makes us one: the Church. We are not a village, here! This island is a place of prayer and devotion. St Augustine brought the faith to England and he was Benedictine. It is those rules that give us the right to look kings in the eye – as I have done with three. I am no great thane or king myself. I am the humble abbot of a monastery dedicated to our patron. Yet I think if another abbot came here and saw how we live, I would be ashamed. We took a vow of poverty, yet eat our fill and live in comfort! The abbey is incomplete, but instead of working every hour to finish it, I see slackness and sloth everywhere I look. I see brothers of the cloth strolling hand in hand with wives, their children around their feet. Where is the silent prayer? The mortification of flesh? Where is the dignity in our order? Can you not see we have lost the path?’

  I became aware I was haranguing them, that I had grown red-faced and angry in my passion. I cooled myself with deep breaths and went on.

  ‘A brother of the order must dedicate his life to the worship of God. The Rule of St Benedict concerns his behaviour, yes, saying he should visit the sick and bury the dead, that he should not provoke laughter or take oaths he might break, and so on. There are hundreds of such commands, though not a single one, not one, is intended to frustrate or restrain, but to focus our hearts. The Rule says, “As soon as anything hath been commanded by the superior they permit no delay in the execution, as if the matter had been commanded by God Himself.”’

  I let a natural pause develop as they swallowed that particular morsel. It did not hurt to remind them.

  ‘Devotion to God cannot be shared with a wife,’ I told them. ‘We are about God’s business in this place. For this is his abbey, rising around us.’

  I sat down in triumph, though they were too stunned or moved to applaud me. We sat through another hour of Caspar speaking and my replies, each answer striking down his points like arrows, littering the ground with them. Yet he endured. It was getting late and I was wearying of their resistance when a whisper of childish terror went through that place.

  It began as a groan almost, a low sound like an animal in pain, spilling out across the rafters so that we all heard it in the same instant. We sat like statues as the voice spoke, clear as if the words were whispered by our ear.

  ‘Blessed Father Dunstan knows my will and my way,’ it said, three times.

  Silence flooded back in and scores of men crossed themselves or touched beads or relicts to their lips and murmured prayers.

  I began to rise, determined to call a vote, knowing the moment of triumph had come at last. Yet Caspar was still there at the rostrum and, to my astonishment, he shook his head.

  ‘Was that the voice of the enemy?’ he called across the hall. ‘If you will speak, Lord, speak to us now, that we may know you. If not, we must believe it was the devil himself.’

  I bristled, but the whole room went silent again, listening. Nothing came, as I had rather suspected it might not. The extraordinary awe of the moment had been lost with a simple question. I began to regard Caspar as a threat I could not ignore.

  ‘There is our answer, then,’ he said: ‘that the devil himself wishes to banish women and families from the holy orders! I suggest to you that goodness lies in retaining them!’

  I looked to my right as a great creaking began. Once more everyone sat as still and as afraid as mice. I took one great step to my left and then the hall went crashing down. Before my eyes, the entire floor dropped away, sending screaming men and women into a chaos of broken timber and so much dust we were blind. I alone remained standing there, balanced on the single beam that had not given way. It was a great miracle – and proof that I was in the right and that the voice had been God’s and not the devil.

  Three men died in the crush that evening, found pale and broken when the rest clambered out. Caspar survived, though with a broken ankle. In all, it was a high price to pay, but I think it was important to deny them a vote which would have tarnished their souls.

  When I made arrangements to return to court, it was with the understanding that Prior Caspar would deny any newly married monks from then on – and encourage a more disciplined approach from those who resided with us.

  The north had settled down by the fifth year of Eadred’s reign. Eric Sore-axe and a whole host of Olafs had been put into the ground, or set afire. The main walls of the abbey were finished in the summer, so that a host of glass-men and lead workers crawled over it then. It would take another year before I was finally satisfied with it, when the Te Deum could be sung and the air lost some of its chill behind the great doors. Yet it stood – the greatest abbey in England. My vision had been made real, each stone upon stone. Whenever I was alone there, I would put the palm of my right hand on a column and thank God for helping me to bring it about. It will stand when I am dust – and that is not a small thing to contemplate.

  Though the grounds were still rough and unkempt, we held a great ceremony there in the spring to exhume and reinter the body of my friend, King Edmund. That royal tomb was in cream marble, polished to a high sheen and bearing an extraordinary likeness of him. I had overseen the work and even taken a little breadth off the nose with my own hands when I saw the mason could not understand what I was describing. Our choir sang to the wooden beams high above.

  The life of the abbey settled down to a routine that sustained us all. Master Justin wore the black and the number of our monks had reached one hundred and eighty or thereabouts, with another forty-two lads learning their letters and their Latin in the school. The community was thriving.

  King Eadred had commissioned a new palace in London, and Master Justin left us for a time to oversee the work. As always, the entire royal court moved from city to city – from Bath, to Norfolk, to Leicester, to Wales and so on, always in sight of the people, always watching for insurrection. The king staged great tourneys in some places, which was a rare entertainment but also served to remind his subjects that he had a large number of warriors at his command. I liked Eadred, I really did. I might easily have gone with him, but I was working on the best harp I ever made – a thing of great beauty. I loved to run my hand along the sweep of grain, though I was no musician. Having failed to draw any great music from my previous attempts, I understood the flaw lay in me rather than the instruments. Yet I had an idea to create sound without my having to touch it at all.

  I was lost in my work, with a long summer evening drawing to a close. From old habit, I’d chosen the smaller forge we’d built up against the side of the chapel in the earliest days of the abbey being torn down and rebuilt. It was a snug little room, not six feet by eight and uncomfortably warm when the forge was hot. When I rested from my labours, the only sounds were the clink of metal cooling, or a hiss of my sweat
falling on some part of it.

  There was a window and I had the shutters back and the evening breeze coming in to give me relief. I looked up from a perfect iron string, drawn fine but strong, to see a face I knew leaning in on me.

  ‘I told you to go back to your retirement,’ I said.

  Skinner raised his head in a sort of challenge or a greeting. I frowned at him. He had been drinking, I could smell it.

  ‘You did, father. You did that. But you made me a free man again . . . and free men don’t always go where they’re told.’

  I put down my tools, though the heat of the forge beat at me. I liked neither his tone nor the way his eyes gleamed in his drunkenness.

  ‘You have no business here, Skinner,’ I told him firmly. ‘Not with me. Go back to your son in London. I have treated you well and I owe you nothing.’

  ‘Maybe you do owe me a little more, though,’ he said. ‘After all I’ve done for you. Me and the boy.’

  I felt illness creep across me, almost like a chill, though the forge seemed to thump heat in time with my heart.

  ‘You think they would believe you, against my word?’ I said softly.

  ‘That we helped you saw joists in the old school and rested it all on wedges that me and the boy could hammer out? I heard three poor monks died in the crush, so I think, yes, they might be interested in that. But if I had a little gold, perhaps . . .’

  He was an old man and he could not move fast enough to stop me. I reached into the forge and swept up tongs that were yellow in the charcoal. I grasped him by the back of the neck so he could not pull away. With my right hand, I closed those iron jaws on his nose and held him as he screamed and boiled. Voices called in fear nearby, asking who could be making such a clamour, or whether it was some animal.