The Beautiful Thread (23 page)

He found Father Chad dusting books and tidying things away.

“Good morning, Brother,” the abbot said pleasantly. “May I have a word?”

He related something of the hurt his probing in the hayloft had discovered, and asked his erstwhile prior to give account of himself.

Father Chad looked worried.

“I thought it for the best, Father John,” he pleaded. “I know he likes to come here. I know he enjoys our company – but he had his chance at that, didn't he? And threw it away. He could have lived here every day of his life, but it wasn't enough. He had to be off on some other trail with an attractive scent. Now it seems that isn't enough either – he wants to be back here, finding out how things are going, stirring everything up. He can't seem to settle to anything; has to be peering over the fence. Can't seem to live with us in peace nor yet leave us in peace. No sooner he finds another place to be than he's back again, causing trouble. I'm sorry – honestly – if what I said upset him. But he put us in real danger yesterday.”

John gazed, incredulous, at Father Chad.

“He's not… oh, you dimwit. You numbskull. You absolute
ninny
, Chad!” He knew he was sounding exactly like his sister Madeleine, but he didn't care. “It's not him causing trouble for us, you bird-brained bonehead; it's the other way round! There he was, peacefully at home out of harm's way, minding his own business and making his life work, until I went down there to beg him to come and help us – and right graciously he came, without one second's hesitation. He's stopped us spiralling down into chaos in the midst of this great nightmare influx of humanity; he's put himself between Cormac's impetuosity and the inevitable repercussions, and as a result of it his life is on the line –
again
. Causing trouble for us? Heaven bless us, man, can you not just
think
before you speak?”

Father Chad, mortified, blinked rapidly as he took this in. “I… I hadn't looked at it like that,” he said. “You mean – you
asked
him to come back? And he a fugitive – an apostate?”

The abbot hesitated. Certainly, two legitimate courses of action had been open to him – expelling William or imprisoning him. Abetting his free choice to leave monastic profession to make a life with Madeleine was as grave a sin as William breaking his vows to go. He had brokered a spiritual adultery. Continuing any kind of friendship and interaction mired him, the abbot, in deeper. Severance and repentance were the only options allowed when a fully professed brother said he wanted to leave. John had chosen instead the complications of compromise. Every place the road forked along the way, the path he had taken seemed inevitable. But he could also see how the destination he'd reached would shock Father Chad. His vocation asked that he remain steadfast; instead he'd chosen to bend with the wind. He had followed his heart; the expression of bewilderment and distress on his librarian's face made him think that here was another man who thought he should have gone with his head.

This is what life and responsibility do to you
, he thought;
this is the terrible power of human love. It dissolves all certainty. You make adjustments and modifications. Love and religion are uneasy bedfellows over time. It's hard to forget the screams of the man you burn at the stake. The act may have been accomplished in all righteousness, but you still lie awake at night, remembering the livid agony
. So here he stood, the guilty accomplice of kindness.

His brother in religion stood waiting. John had thought he came here to task Chad with his shortcomings; now it seemed the boot was on the other foot.

“Yes.” The indignation left him, and his voice faltered as he answered. “Yes, I asked him to come back.”

“And – is he still here?”

In a long, struggling silence, John looked at him. “Yes. Yes, he is… but – please –”

“Then, when you see him,” said Father Chad, “will you tell him I am most heartily sorry. I hadn't understood.”

Chapter
Six

T
here had been moments when John wondered if the bishop would ever go home. Ten days –
ten days
. He felt entirely certain the scrutiny of a monastery had never been so thorough or complete. No stone unturned. Dissected, visited and revisited and one more time for luck, the common life of St Alcuin's had been pinned back and laid bare. He did vaguely wonder if Brother Conradus's culinary acumen was partly responsible for this. But no matter; at long last his Lordship drew the abbey's visitation to a close, seeking one final audience with its shredded abbot.

“Your kitchens are marvellous,” he pronounced; “your school is satisfactory; your guesthouse is pleasant and clean – not one insect bite have I suffered in the course of my stay. The daily round of life seems sober, orderly – even exemplary. Your stores are in good health, and your books well kept. Your novitiate is in good hands –
very
good hands. In general, I commend you. There is just one small thing, though. While your personal loyalty to your friends is no doubt admirable, I suspect it may be achieved at considerable cost to the faithful upholding of your obedience to the authority of Holy Church.

“I sat in your Chapter meeting – the day before yesterday, I believe – and the reading from the Rule reminded me again – now, what was it? Have you a copy handy? Thank you. Let me see… just a minute… Ah, yes – here we are. Regarding Sarabaites: ‘Whatever enters their mind or appeals to them, that they call holy; what they dislike, they regard as unlawful.' It brought a little smile to my lips, Abbot John – because it reminded me of you.”

His small, sharp, astute eyes rested meditatively on the abbot's face. “I am not easy to deceive,” he said, “and I do believe you have tried to mislead and hoodwink me. I mean – let me make myself quite clear – with regard to your one-time brother of this house, William de Bulmer. Foxes are hard to surprise but easy to smell when they've been around. I don't know what game you are playing, Abbot John, but you can be sure of this: I will be watching. My reach is long. Word finds me. I have eyes in many places. And I do not like that man.”

You and how many other people?
thought John, but he lowered his eyes submissively, and did not speak.

“Well?” The bishop wanted a response.

Cautiously, John framed a reply. “I am sorry that your Lordship finds anything disappointing. I am sorry if something in my conduct is lacking, falls short of the mark. And I'm grateful and appreciative that you find so much to commend. All I can say of William de Bulmer is that our responsibility for him – our jurisdiction over him – ceased on the day he left us. Some of us were glad; he was not born to an easy life, and turbulence surely attends him. And yet, for all that, he loved and served us right well, in his way; he tried his best. He made mistakes in his life, as which of us do not? For the grief and trouble he caused, he was humbly sorry, and made the best reparation he could. Much like St Paul, Christ enlightened him, turned him around. The man you were seeking is already dead. His life is hid with Christ in God.”

The bishop frowned. “William de Bulmer is dead? Well, why didn't you say so before, man? Are you making this up? You told me you knew nothing of his whereabouts!”

The abbot felt strongly tempted to roll with this misconstruction of what he had said, but felt it might lead to further trouble if he did. So he replied: “When a man leaves here, he is dead to us; and when a man is in Christ, he is a new creation.”

The bishop contemplated him thoughtfully, then shook his head. “Be careful, Abbot John Hazell.” The quiet menace of his voice was not lost on the abbot. Friendship with William turned out to be a hazardous undertaking indeed. And potentially costly.

But his Visitor picked up his gloves and made ready to be on his way. Not entirely easy in his mind, John watched him and his equerry ride out. He felt uncomfortably aware that, even with his best efforts, he could never guarantee to shelter either William or Madeleine from cruel and vindictive men bent on mischief; especially those whose arm came strengthened with the whole weight of the magisterium. It was not beyond possibility that he had jeopardized the peace and safety of every brother in his community; the men whose shepherd he was, the charge of their wellbeing placed in his trust. With a heavy heart he watched Brother Martin drop the great iron latch behind their departing inquisitor. This did not have the feel of a story entirely told.

Even so, he had other matters awaiting him. He walked back across the court to his lodging, sat at his table, picked up his pen, dipped it in the ink, and did what he might to train his thoughts into preparing a homily for Hannah's wedding.

“
Estote autem invicem benigni
…
5
” he wrote. He straightened his back, warily, wishing it didn't feel so sore it made him want to weep. He looked at the words he'd written and tried to think of something trenchant – or at the very least, coherent – to say about them. This would be his last chance to speak up for Hannah before the Bonvallet dynasty swallowed her up. Getting this right mattered.

The latch to the cloister door rattled and lifted. John raised his head. It was his esquire. The abbot suppressed as best he could his frustration. Was it impossible for a man to find five uninterrupted minutes to work and think?

“I thought you and Stephen were going to get the rest of the bracken in,” he said, trying hard to seem casually conversational.

“Aye – I was.” Tom sounded as frayed as John felt. “I came back because I thought you might like to know, while you were with Bishop Eric this morning, Sir Geoffrey and Lady Agnes d'Ebassier arrived. Brother Dominic made them comfortable in the guesthouse, said you weren't free right then. But they're champing at the bit to come and greet you. They're wondering if they might not have to wait for suppertime, but can dine with you at midday as well. Being the case, it occurred to me you might be grateful for some back-up. So I searched out a lad from the novitiate to go up with Stephen. Brother Placidus. Cutting bracken isn't a complicated thing wanting expertise – I just like doing it. Oh, what? Not grateful?”

The abbot took this in. “I'm sorry, Tom,” he said. “Of course I'm grateful. It's just… The d'Ebassiers… Whatever next? Oh,
Jesu
,
Maria
, oh heaven give me strength. Oh, my God. Oh, my Lord Jesus.” He put down the quill and dropped his head into his hands.

“Hey – Father – John! I wasn't in earnest – about expecting you to be grateful, I mean; I was in earnest about the d'Ebassiers. It's all right. Look – I'll stall them. I'll send Francis over there to cheer 'em up. He can convey effusive greetings and salutations and tell 'em, yes, you'll be
delighted
to see them – at suppertime. How's that? You don't have to be at everyone's beck and call. And, when I've been to the guesthouse, will I nip up to the hayloft and give William the all-clear? Yes? And set our prisoner free?”

The abbot pulled himself together and looked his esquire in the eye, trying to summon a modicum of cheerfulness to meet his kindness. “Oh, glory – yes, please do,” he said. “But, Tom! Caution William that the d'Ebassiers are here. Bishop Eric was not pleased about our concealment of William, nor fooled, by a long way. Best he avoids encounter with anybody he even
thinks
might know him.”

“Aye, Father; consider it done. Back to your cogitations, then.”

By the time Tom returned, he found his abbot had recovered his equilibrium.

“Tom,” he said, “I'm embarrassed to be asking this, because I'm sure you'll already have told me and I've forgotten – have our cows calved well?”

“Aye, they have,” said Tom, surprised that in the midst of all that had been going on, surrounded by guests and with final preparations for the wedding still requiring attention, John had time or inclination to think about the cows. “We had two bull calves and three heifers this spring – all fine, healthy animals.”

“So, not counting the heifer calves, just the mothers, we have eight milk cows now?”

“Nine. When William was living with us, he extorted one in lieu of rent from some poor soul who'd fallen on hard times. After the summer rain, the man was all ‘I'm so sorry, Father, I can't even afford to buy fodder for my cows'; to which William's reply was, ‘Oh, really? Well, you can give one of them to us, then, and I'll write off a third of your debt.' Farmer looked fairly sour. He could see William had the better half of the bargain. But he didn't have much choice, so that's why we have nine cows.”

“I see. Thank you.” Tom waited, but the abbot said no more on the subject, and returned to the task of finishing off the homily for tomorrow, so his esquire got busy with his usual chores. As soon as John had roughed something out to his satisfaction, he left his atelier and went across to the checker, where he found Brother Cormac all the better for a few days' rest in a quiet cell. On reflection, John thought he wouldn't have minded changing places.

“Can I have a look at our dairy yield records?” he asked the cellarer, and felt heartened to see Cormac could put his hand on them instantly and they were up to date and in immaculate order. He scanned the most recent page.

“But this… it's all in William's writing!”

Brother Cormac laughed. “Father John, you have no idea. He's been through these accounts like a gale force wind. He's been down here in the middle of the night with a candle, and here in the day when he knew the bishop was elsewhere. He's had every brother in the house on full alert as his watchdogs. Yes, our dairy record was a mish-mash of jottings, whatever Brother Stephen or I, or Tom passing through, thought to note down. Not good enough for William. He's been up at the farm asking questions, he copied out all the particulars and added in the new bits he'd gleaned from Stephen, wrote the whole thing out afresh in proper columns, and told me not to waste our old sheet but use it for kindling. And that was just the dairy yields!”