Remember Me (14 page)

“Brother Benedict,” John said kindly and calmly, “please go and satisfy yourself that Martin has the other men's suppers in hand and all the feeders have been cared for. Then get a brush, rags, and a pail of soapy water to clean up in here. There's no call for you to reproach yourself about this. It was waiting to happen. Truly, it could only be a matter of time. We gave Father Oswald some months of peace and dignity here, but there were some things we could not do. Please don't blame yourself. It was not your fault.”

The novice nodded gratefully and hurried to make amends for his ineptitude by supervising whatever of supper still waited to be done. John looked at William, appraising his state of mind.

“You don't have to come in,” he said. “There is nothing but a body in here.”

“Thanks!” said Brother Michael over his shoulder.

That made them both smile, and William felt an obligation to face this moment. He followed John into the room.

Brother Michael, having assured himself there were no vital signs and death was certain, now got to his feet and picked up the table. Abbot John lifted up the chair. Its cushion was in among the debris of broken crockery and splashed food and drink, so for the moment he let it lie.

As the two of them set the room to rights, William knelt down beside his friend. With the side of his thumb he signed Oswald's forehead with the cross of Jesus. He murmured a prayer of blessing, commending his soul to God, and a
Pater Noster
, an
Ave Maria
, and a
Gloria
. Brother Michael and Abbot John stopped what they were doing and stood in the silent reverence of this farewell as he made his prayer. “God bless you, Oswald,” whispered William finally. “May Christ receive you in heaven, and may God have mercy on your soul. May your soul be held safe this day in the hands of God, and there may no torment touch you ever again.”

He sat back on his heels and stared soberly down at Oswald's dead face. As he looked at its purple contusion, it occurred to him that without Brother Tom's swift and clearheaded action earlier in the year, the fallen body of death on the floor might have been himself. In this moment he had no idea at all what he thought about that. He reflected that whatever else an end may be, it offers a solution.

“Let's lift him onto the bed.” Abbot John's quiet voice recalled him. William got to his feet, out of their way, watching his abbot and Brother Michael lift the corpse with practiced ease onto the bed they had just stripped of blankets to receive it.

“Shall we do it together?” asked Abbot John. Michael smiled at him, nodding his assent. It felt good to work as a team again on this sacred task of washing and laying out the blessed dead.

Brother Benedict returned with his bucket and rags and brush. William saw that at this point he became nothing more than part of the clutter. He thanked John for letting him come and make his farewell, then slipped away.

He had lost track of the time, and he didn't want to go back to the checker. He walked back along the path for the second time that day, reminded himself to speak to someone about fixing those cobbles, went into the church through the Lady Chapel and then to the choir. It surprised him to find men gathering quietly for Vespers. He had not grasped that he'd missed supper, and he didn't feel hungry. He wondered how long he'd knelt by Oswald's body. Such a curious thing, so uneven—the passing of time.

Seeing Father Chad in his stall, William crossed the chapel to speak to him. The prior sat in silent meditation, his eyes closed in prayer.

“Father Chad.”

The prior's eyes snapped open as William spoke his name in the softest undertone.

“Yes? Is something amiss?”

“Father Abbot is detained. Father Oswald has died—very suddenly. Father John is with Brother Michael in the infirmary now. It may be that you will have to stand in for him for Vespers. Or he may come. I don't know.”

As the prior got to his feet with an air of importance, William thought that few things irritated him as much as Father Chad rising to the occasion. He bent his head in a small bow of submission and went back to his own seat.

Around the chapel, he saw men taking note with the slightest lifting of the head or movement of the eyes that Father Chad sat in the abbot's place, which signalled some event must have disrupted the routine.

William sat in his stall, finding the place in the breviary. The silence of the church was more underlined than disturbed by the quiet sound of individuals making their way into the choir. He lifted his cowl over his head and folded his hands inside his sleeves. He felt a momentary impulse of gratitude that Brother Robert had not yet arrived. That novice seemed to find him irresistibly intriguing and watched him most of the time. The only refuge of privacy lay in closing his eyes. For now he let his gaze wander, loving the holiness and austerity of this place of prayer.

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.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

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.