The Breath of Peace (11 page)

However hard he thought about it, nobody came to mind. He sat frowning, unaware of his fingers drumming the table, mentally searching every face, every personality in his community. Germanus, maybe? Thoughtful man, not greatly occupied. Francis? Or maybe he could kill two birds with one stone and ask Father Chad to take on the cellarer's work, which would dislodge him from his ill-suited role as prior. Would he be any good as a cellarer? Chad was meticulous – fussy even, at times – dedicated, hard-working, dutiful. Not especially imaginative. Mild in his manner. He had been part of the community since forever, which was good. As prior, he had been privy to every decision made in the last two decades or so – except those decisions that William had re-assigned to himself without asking anyone during his brief and eventful stay in their midst. Chad, then? Was it right?
Was
it? John felt paralysed. He could not afford to make a mistake here. And who would stand in as prior?

‘Should I ask the community, at Chapter?' he asked aloud. Brother Tom had finished all that needed doing in his abbot's house, but he was lingering, making himself look busy, cleaning things twice, because he had an idea his superior might welcome a listening ear and a second mind on the problem.

In response to this question Tom came, the small brush and shovel for the ashes still in his hands, to stand opposite his abbot, facing him across the cluttered oak table.

‘I see where you're coming from,' he said, ‘but whatever you decide on this one, I would counsel you to tell them, not ask them. In every community there are men who think a question is an invitation to object. No conversation is nicely rounded off for them without a winner and a loser. Even here. The way I see it, Father, is you don't have too many options. If you put the one solution you have up for grabs and have to sit and watch men evil-tempered with cold and dark tear it to shreds, what will your next proposal be? You haven't got one. It's fair to tell 'em if you mean to bring William back here – but tell them, don't ask. But before you do that, go and see him. He may have better ideas of his own than you or me. I hope I'm not speaking out of turn.'

John stared at Tom in an agony of indecision. Brother Tom waited a moment lest he be further required, then turned away quietly and returned to the careful and meticulous sweeping of hearth and chimney stones.

John sat, twisting his lips between thumb and forefinger, calculating risks and advisabilities, and seeing no new options emerge.

‘I'll go and see him,' he concluded finally. ‘I just don't know what else to do. Will you ask Brother Peter to get Bess ready? She's not had much exercise through the winter – tell him not to worry, I'm not going far and I won't ride her hard. I'll ask Father Chad to look after the office for me, and set off directly.'

And so it was that, just shy of noon, William, sitting at the table under the window with their household account books working out how much of a dent in their budget the hire of a ploughboy would make, and Madeleine, spinning at the fireside, caught the sharp ring of a horse's shod hooves against the stones in the lane. Both paused in their tasks as they heard the thud of iron on wood that meant the gate latch had flicked over, and realized the rider had turned into their yard. William lifted his head.

‘Expecting anyone?'

‘Nay – I thought you must be.'

They listened to the silence as the rider dismounted, the metallic thud of the gate latch dropping back into place, and the slow clop of the horse now led across the flagged yard, then both of them abandoned their tasks and went to the door.

‘Adam! Adam!' After a brief hiatus of astonishment Madeleine closed the gap between herself and her brother in a racing whirl of skirts and flung her arms around him. ‘Oh, how wonderful to see you! And how strange that you came just now – I've been missing you. William and I were only talking about it a day or so back – I've been thinking to make my way up to the abbey for a visit – and now here you are! Oh, I can't tell you how pleased I am to see you again!' As he dropped the pack he had untied, to catch his sister in his embrace, John felt William quietly detach old Bess's reins from his grasp. William led her along to their stable, empty during the hours of daylight, and there unsaddled her, gave her a cursory brush down and half a bucket of water. She was sweating and the well-water was icy cold. He didn't want her to drink too much too fast. He closed the door on her and went for some hay to refill the rack above the manger, bringing a generous armful back from the barn to the stable.

John went into the house with Madeleine, and gave her the gifts he had brought of butter (‘Oh, God love you! That's so welcome! Our goat's almost dry, she's kiddling soon') and beeswax candles (‘Adam, these smell like heaven!'), then he left her tidying away the things on the table ready to set out a meal for them to share, and went to find William. He rounded the corner of the house, looked and listened, and identified the building that must be the stable.

William, stuffing the net with hay, glanced up and smiled at his friend as John came into the doorway.

‘A beard suits you,' John greeted him, returning the smile; ‘and that shaggy hair – but it's done nothing whatsoever to disguise your identity – I'd know those eyes anywhere!'

‘Well met, Father Abbot,' William replied. ‘I've missed you. What brings you here? Trouble? Whatever it is, you are most heartily welcome. As ever, you bring a breath of peace with you.'

Two strands of thought twined together in John's mind then. One was William's question and how he might answer it, the concerns for which he needed William's help. But a second thread tangled itself unobtrusively in with the first – he thought William seemed not entirely happy. Despite the genuine warmth of his welcome, John sensed in him a reserve, a stillness, that he associated with pain. ‘Is all well?' he asked, instead of answering William's question.

‘Oh,' William replied, patting old Bess, the abbey's sway-backed mare, as he came out into the sunlight to greet his friend, ‘we are astonishingly well provided for here. The magnanimity of this gift amazes me every living day. We have a way to go yet to establish ourselves; we have barely made a start in this first year – I am not very handy, as you know. But we have the blessing of an income as well as the house and land; we are bountifully provided for.'

As he talked, he bolted the half-door of the stable behind him, and put a hand lightly on John's back in invitation to accompany him back to the house. John picked through the information William had just given him, searching for something real. ‘Was that an answer, or the evasion I think it was?' he asked. But they had reached the house door, and William leaned forward to open it, then stepped back to allow John to precede him inside.

Madeleine stood at the table. She had set out three wooden bowls into which she ladled generous portions of pottage. A loaf of bread, today's baking still warm, sent out an inviting aroma. Two round white cheeses, precious and small, were all that Marigold's yield could now offer. Madeleine had stirred chopped sage into the curds, and the result looked pleasing and appetizing. As the men came in from the yard, she was just adding to the table the butter that John had brought.

‘Nothing fancy,' she said apologetically. ‘These are lean months. We're drying off the goat and we've little in store.' She glanced at John, then added hastily: ‘I mean, we are not short of anything we need, but you know how it is – goes against the grain to buy at the market what we might make shift to provide for ourselves, and will do, given time. Anyway, you're welcome to what we have, and we are not hard up. We can buy what we haven't grown and stored. We should have a second goat soon, in the spring maybe. When William's accounts give us permission. Look, William – butter! From St Alcuin's cows!'

John smiled as William murmured his thanks with real appreciation, but he noted the hint of sarcasm as his sister spoke of William's accounts.

‘William's way with accounts is legendary,' he said, as they took their seats at the table; then added quickly, seeing the shadow of wretchedness passing over his friend's face: ‘Nay, truly! That was no jest. It's why I'm here. No household goes far without a careful eye on its books, and our Brother Ambrose has died. I've been remiss, I've let the community down. I'd put no one in place to learn the ropes, and now we are without. I've no idea who to ask; and even if I had, I've no one to ease him into all that will be asked of him in that obedience. We might have stumbled along until I thought of something, but the new bishop has chosen us for a Visitation in May, and from all I've heard he's something of a zealot in every respect. They say he's high-minded in his doctrine and more than scrupulous about every facet of administration and propriety of life. I'm not worried about the doctrine, or our life generally – we're in fairly good shape I think. It's the administration where things are shaky under me. I relied completely on Father Ambrose – and on your good work, which he in turn relied on. I don't know what to do, how to get something in place quickly to be sure we have all in order. I took counsel of my esquire, and he encouraged me to come here and beg assistance.'

‘Oh,' said William thoughtfully, tearing the bread as he listened to this, and gesturing to John to help himself to a piece. ‘It wasn't your prior's counsel you sought, then? Your
esquire
? Will you say grace for us, Father?'

‘Well, that would be Brother Thomas, wouldn't it?' asked Madeleine, after they had bowed their heads for the Latin grace and left a moment's pause for reverence. ‘What's wrong with that? I'm only hazarding a guess, but I'd have thought you'd get more sense out of Brother Thomas than out of Father Chad.'

‘Aye, right, so you would!' William said drily. ‘Then why on earth doesn't he get a better prior?'

‘Oh, William, don't be so sour!' Madeleine exclaimed. ‘And mind your own business!'

John grinned and William shrugged, turning his attention to his pottage. ‘I think it's becoming my business, isn't it?' He laid down again the spoon he had lifted. ‘Father Chad is who should be stepping in for Brother Ambrose.'

‘For goodness' sake!' Madeleine rolled her eyes impatiently. ‘There's no need to be such a stickler about status and position! After all, you broke enough rules yourself while you were there.'

A flash of irritation sparked in William's eye. His voice when he spoke was a shade quieter and softer than before. ‘In truth, so I did. You haven't understood, Madeleine. I'm not thinking of order and hierarchy. John's prior is there to watch his back, to keep an ear to the ground. If an abbot can't turn to his prior for good counsel when trouble arises, he's more vulnerable than he ought to be. There's nothing wrong at all with Brother Thomas, he's a man of good sense. But it shouldn't be his esquire that John is relying on. That's all.'

‘Can I say something?' John smiled at his friend. ‘William's entirely right, Madeleine; and he's not picking holes – he cares about my welfare, and I'm grateful. I'm still finding my way, and I haven't got everything sorted out yet. If you can advise me about a prior and about a cellarer I shall be even more in your debt than I already am. But you don't have to put your mind to it this very instant. Your good lady has set some delicious food before you, and I think it's worth appreciating.'

‘Thank you!' said Madeleine. ‘Come here more often and tell him that!'

William picked up his spoon again and addressed himself to the bowl of stew. John, unconsciously frowning in puzzlement, watched him a moment before beginning his own food. Something seemed amiss here. The subtle fingerpads of his soul were feeling rough edges beneath this conversation.

‘Madeleine, this is delicious!' he exclaimed. ‘I must indeed come here more often. This is so flavoursome, and the bread is excellent too – just how I like it. Reminds me of home.'

William, silent, felt his stomach slowly contracting in guilt and self-reproach that he rarely thought to compliment his wife on the food she made for him. He thought of adding, ‘Yes, it's really good,' but rejected that course of action; it would sound hollow coming from a man who mostly did not think to express his appreciation – as if it had been said for John's benefit not for Madeleine's. The old knot of shame tightened inside him until he felt he couldn't eat another mouthful of anything.

He glanced up, met John's gaze.
What?
John's eyes were asking him.
What's the matter?
He didn't want that question.

‘There's plenty more in the pot!' Madeleine's words mercifully saved him from having to think of anything to say. ‘And don't hold back on the bread, I can make some more if it's all gone. William, are you not hungry? I never knew a man with so little appetite!'

Now both of them stopped and looked at him.

‘Sweetheart, I'm sorry.' William crumbled a morsel of bread and raised his eyes to hers. ‘I… listening to John, I just realized how little I bother to tell you how much I enjoy the meals you prepare for us, and how much it means to me… not the food only, but our home here together, and the way you care for me and make everything comfortable.'

He reached across the table, and his fingertips traced a light caress on her work-worn hand. ‘Thank you.'

Madeleine smiled. ‘William de Bulmer, you are such an oddity! So full of unexpectedness. Have some cheese, my love – you like this cheese.'

That's better
, thought John. Knowing William would feel more like eating if that ceased to be the focus of attention, he said: ‘So, my friend, help me! Among our brethren at the abbey, who can I possibly find to fill Brother Ambrose's shoes, let alone yours?'