The Beautiful Thread (10 page)

As they walked back to the checker, they talked of the care of the sick and dying, of human nature and the threads of faith, the bright thread of love and courage – gold, she said; red, thought John – and the thread of peace – blue, said John; green, said Rose – woven into the stuff of everyday life; strengthening and stabilizing it.

In the checker, he introduced her to Brother Cormac, showed her where to find information if she needed it, where the keys of the storerooms and cellars hung. From there he took her to the refectory, to show her the quickest way into the kitchen from the guesthouse.

Father Theodore, who had left most of his novices working on their New Testament Greek, dashed down to beg his abbot's attendance at the bishop's second visit to the novitiate. He didn't know when that would be, but assumed it must be soon, since the Visitation was generally accomplished in three days; so he thought he'd ask now.

He had been greeted at the cloister door to the abbot's house by Brother Tom, who said the abbot would most likely be in the vicinity of the checker. With a hastily suppressed sigh of exasperation – he ought to be overseeing his charges – Theo strode across the atelier, opening the further door in time to see John and Rose walk across the greensward from the checker to the refectory. He stopped in his tracks, watching John's eyes crinkle in a spontaneous moment of genuine, unaffected laughter, seeing how the abbot bent his head to attend to what Rose was saying, observing the openness, the happiness of her countenance, so lively and natural.

“Oh, no,” he said under his breath. “Oh, no, no, no. Oh, sweet mother of God. That's all we need.”

Tom came to stand behind, looking over his shoulder. “Don't say it,” he said. “Don't say anything. Not to me, not to anyone. Let's hope he'll come to his senses and it'll just sort itself out. He's canny, is John. Most of the time, anyway. Well…” The two men watched the approach of their abbot and his guest. “At least, he usually is. Oh, he'll catch up with himself.”

Theo shook his head in unbelieving despondency. “Quite possibly. But when? After how much damage is done? We're in the middle of a bishop's Visitation, for heaven's sake.”

“Theo! Let it alone. I'll have a word with him if need be. Oh look – there's the equerry. I wonder where he's going?”

As John and Rose walked along to the abbot's house Brainard, having discovered Brother Conradus's genius, headed this lovely May morning towards the kitchen. Not only had he a considerable list of his own morsels of choice, but carried in his head Bishop Eric's aspirations for the gastronomic aspects of his stay.

His path from the guesthouse crossed the abbey court, then took him through the refectory into the cloister – the simplest route to the kitchen.

In the refectory, he found Brother Richard and Brother Placidus, hard at work on the dining tables. Richard scrubbed these thoroughly every afternoon, but they wanted waxing to make a nice finish for the forthcoming marriage celebrations. Located in the west range with a door into the abbey court, the refectory offered a convenient space for larger parties of visitors than the guesthouse could accommodate. This didn't happen often – the triduum of Easter was usually the only time of year St Alcuin's received a really sizeable influx – but on this occasion every nook they could think of would be pressed into use; and had to be cleaned first.

Today, Richard had scrubbed the tables down as usual, swept the floors, and had now started on the laborious job of rubbing in the polish. Brother Walafrid made good-sized pots of this, using their own beeswax fragranced with lavender from the garden. The turpentine he added softened it somewhat, and Brother Conradus had set the pot to stand near the kitchen fire since first lighting it this morning. But the consistency remained stiff; applying it to all six tables took some muscle. When the last one had been completed, the first should be ready for the patient work of buffing with first one cloth, then another of softer fabric, and finally with a square of sheepskin – the fleecy side, obviously. Nobody looked forward to this job, but at least Placidus could console himself it had got him out of a long morning of New Testament Greek. Father Theodore had with reluctance given his permission.

Humming a cheery (but sacred) melody, Brainard came into the refectory, and paused to inhale deeply the aromatic mixture scenting the room.

“Ahhh!” he exclaimed appreciatively. Brother Placidus continued his work without pausing; as a novice he was not supposed to get into conversation with the abbey's guests, unless that proved unavoidable. Brother Richard looked up and smiled.

“Good morrow,” he said pleasantly.

“Aha!” Brainard contemplated the fraterer with approval. “Now, that's what I like to see – a smiling face. Did you know, Brother… er… smiling while you work makes you more productive? Smiling men get more done! Imagine that! Ooh – look – Brother Er; you missed a bit! Just here; can you see? If you tilt your head sideways – lean to the left a little way – you have to look at it so the light just catches the surface. No, not there – a little further along; by that knot in the wood. Yes, that's right. Ooh, and look – another little patch near the end; only small, but I'm sure you want to do a good job. Oh and another – hahaha! Isn't it a merry thing, how once you really start to look, you see little places missed everywhere! That's right. Oh – another little spot; here, look.” He pointed. “How remarkably felicitous I happened to come by. Just think, you might never have noticed. Such occasions – not coincidences to my mind, I like to call them Godincidences – the mini-miracles that blossom unheeded along our daily path. Ooh – another spot here, Brother – er…”

He watched with lively attention as Richard, having little choice in the matter, doggedly persevered with his application of beeswax, baring his teeth in his best approximation of a smile.

“Zounds! Fie! Is that – wait! Just a minute! Go to! There's a mouse!” This elicited little astonishment from Richard or Placidus; the frater hosted plenty of mice. They had a cat, and it hunted valiantly, keeping the population within tolerable limits. But Brainard, moving more swiftly, and more silently, than Richard would have judged within most men's capability, managed to arrest the little creature's escape by treading on its tail. He stamped on it with his other foot, grinding in a vigorous circle to be sure it was dead. Placidus, straightening up from his work, watched open-mouthed. “I think that's done for it – well, nearly; it won't last long,” said the jocund equerry. “A bit of a mess, I'm afraid, but nothing a scrubbing brush won't shift. Well, I must be getting on – I've a list of requests as long as your arm for Brother – er – the kitchener.” He stepped sprightly towards the cloister door, leaving a faint trail of blood mixed with tiny traces of gut, fur and body fluids in his wake. “Don't forget, now!” Almost coquettishly he looked back: “Keep smiling!”

Brother Richard had always maintained that Brother Cormac, during his days as kitchener, ought not to pepper his speech so freely with expletives, exposing the novices who worked alongside him to an example falling far short of the monastic ideal. But in that moment Richard descended to the same unworthy laxity himself. Realizing that not only had his vocabulary been reprehensibly unrestrained for the presence of a novice, but also the choice opinions he had expressed about a guest of the abbey and the right-hand man of their Bishop Visitor, Richard knew he would have to confess this in Chapter the next morning. It occurred to him that Bishop Eric would most likely be present at the Chapter meeting, and wondered if he ought to say nothing, that being the case. Or go to his abbot and make a private confession – though when he saw Father John earlier this morning, he had every appearance of being wholly taken up with Brother Conradus's mother.

“Well? Is it dead?” he snapped at Brother Placidus, who had gone across to look.

“I surely hope so,” said the lad. He sounded upset. “I know they're vermin, but… every creature that lives should have the chance of a gentle death. That's what Father Theo says, anyhow. I'll get the scrubbing brush and a pail of water, shall I, Brother Richard? Clear it up?”

The fraterer nodded, and took a deep breath. “Aye. Good lad. Then we must get cracking with this – it can't be far off time for the midday office. We ought to be laying up in here before too long.”

It might have been awkward if LePrique had come upon Rose in the monastery kitchen. No doubt he would have mentioned his surprise in conversation with his master, and feminine infiltration of the cloister was unquestionably undesirable. Bishop Eric, like Father Theodore, would probably have considered it unthinkable. And the kitchener's chances of getting his feast together without her would have been surpassing slim.

Happy it was, then, that having introduced her to his novice master and cheerfully agreed to make himself available for the next examination of the novitiate, Abbot John found so much in common with Conradus's mother, and such a lot to talk about, that LePrique had just gone on his way by the time she hurried along to the kitchen. The equerry left behind an extensive outline of menu suggestions. Conradus actually physically stopped, when his mother walked in, to achieve the conscious accomplishment of changing the expression on his face.

“Good morrow, my sweet ma!” He took the scroll of dietary aspirations and put it rather emphatically on the spike. “Have you slept well? And breakfasted? And do you feel inclined to have a go at some gingerbread? I'll show you my design for the main course subtlety. I drew it up last night. It's going to be awesome!”

* * *

Father Theodore, out of breath from scaling the stairs at speed, found his novices studying with exemplary quietness on his return. Too quiet, in Brother Robert's case – head resting comfortably on his folded arms upon the desk under the window, he had fallen asleep over his New Testament. The irresistible drowsiness brought on by difficult texts could be palpably felt among them all. So the novice master invited them to regroup into their circle. The physical movement involved in setting out the benches brought them back to life.

“So.” Once they had gathered, Father Theodore looked round at their faces. More than one of them thought he seemed a bit flinty today. More forbidding than usual. “Why do we have a Rule?”

His gaze went from one to the other, his eyebrows raised in enquiry. Theodore encouraged question and comment, he took all of them seriously. They knew that nothing they could say as an honest opinion would draw censure or derision from their novice master. This gave them the necessary confidence to explore possibilities without needing to feel afraid of looking stupid.

Anxious to please, seeing Theo looked a little grim, Brother Boniface said: “The other day in Chapter, we had that reading from near the beginning – the one about Jesus' story of the time of storm when the house doesn't fall, because it's been built on the rock. I don't think the rock is the Rule. And I don't think the Rule is doing the building. Because the story in the Bible says the man who listens to the words of Jesus and acts on them is like someone building on the rock – and that's anyone, not just Benedictines. Perhaps not even only monks or nuns. But I think the Rule might be to guide us in that way. Like a builder's apprenticeship, or something.”

Theo nodded. He rarely said “Good”, or “Right” or “Wrong”. He respected their insights and opinions, and let the discussion between them hunt down truth.

“What about the Chapter based on Psalm 119 we had a day or two ago?” suggested Brother Benedict. “About running in the way of God's commandments? The one that said about the monastery being like a school that trains us, our whole life long. To persevere, and be made fit to be in the presence of Christ. I mean – by his grace, of course, too. As well as the Rule.”

Theo listened to this thoughtfully. And Brother Cassian said: “I guess everything we need for our salvation is already ours in Christ. The word of the Scriptures and the teaching of Holy Church, and really living those things as we come to understand them. But our Rule… well… I'm thinking, Father, if you come at it from the other side, considering how we'd get along without it. Might it be that with no Rule we'd be unruly? Hit and miss, muddling along, misled by our own preferences and temperaments and inclinations. Taken in by understandable human desires. Like the story you told us about the gardener, whose friend admired his beautiful orderly plot, going into raptures about the hand of the Almighty in the work of creation. And the gardener said, ‘Yes, but you should have seen it when the Almighty had it all to himself.' I think the life and growth and beauty comes from the hand of God, but the Rule keeps it tidy and fruitful, so there's something to eat as well as something glorious to look at.”

“Just so,” said Father Theodore, “but please don't repeat that story in the hearing of the bishop. Though it makes a point, it's not the zenith of scholarly theology. But, yes. Bringing our God-given human nature into a fruitful discipline. Because, thinking about human beings for the moment, not gardens, someone usually gets hurt in short order in the lives of people who act on impulse, who abandon wise discipline, who do what they want because it feels so attractive and they can't see the harm in it. And then comes the reckoning. Later. Tears and trouble and broken friendships, people angry and hurt. The reason we have a Rule, to my mind – though the insights you've offered are just as valid as mine – is because it tends towards peace. By that, I don't mean it's easy, or that it encourages complacency. It doesn't make us idle, or dull. Living by our Rule isn't boring or narrow. But it works for peace in human community. And anyone who has tried to live for five minutes without peace must surely grasp how precious that is.”