Read The Humming of Numbers Online
Authors: Joni Sensel
The Humming of Numbers (2 page)
F
rozen in indecision, Aidan resisted the urge to flee. He could duck 'round the nearest corner, but that would not be far enough to keep him out of sight for more than a few seconds, and the pounding of running feet in a monastery would betray him even more quickly than a glimpse of his form. The wisest course was to drop to his knees and beg forgiveness even as the abbot emerged and spied him there.
rozen in indecision, Aidan resisted the urge to flee. He could duck 'round the nearest corner, but that would not be far enough to keep him out of sight for more than a few seconds, and the pounding of running feet in a monastery would betray him even more quickly than a glimpse of his form. The wisest course was to drop to his knees and beg forgiveness even as the abbot emerged and spied him there.
Instead Aidan dove under the wide stone bench. His shoulders and spine cracked painfully against the stone. Folding tight, he drew up his lanky legs, dragged the broom in behind him, and was obscured by the bench's shadow as well as its thick stone feet. The tight space reminded him sharply that such antics were better left to boys half his age. Too late; the abbot's leather slippers stepped over the sill. Aidan held his breath.
Two pairs of feet hurried by without hesitation. As they vanished around a corner, gratitude washed over Aidan.
Then the gravity of what he'd just done squeezed his chest. He wasn't afraid of punishment so much as a blot on his reputation. Aidan wanted badly to serve in the scriptorium, and he'd only recently been allowed to scrape calfskin to help make the vellum pages. It was hard work, and his hands were always sore, but even that taste of the scribes' duties thrilled him. The inks he'd glimpsed didn't just hum but actually shouted at him, numbers in pure liquid form. He couldn't wait to feel a goose quill balanced in his own fingers, to draw it across a page leaving a graceful mark. No other worship could compare to the honor of copying beauty and wisdom in red and green ink, lapis lazuli, and fine dabs of gold.
Then the gravity of what he'd just done squeezed his chest. He wasn't afraid of punishment so much as a blot on his reputation. Aidan wanted badly to serve in the scriptorium, and he'd only recently been allowed to scrape calfskin to help make the vellum pages. It was hard work, and his hands were always sore, but even that taste of the scribes' duties thrilled him. The inks he'd glimpsed didn't just hum but actually shouted at him, numbers in pure liquid form. He couldn't wait to feel a goose quill balanced in his own fingers, to draw it across a page leaving a graceful mark. No other worship could compare to the honor of copying beauty and wisdom in red and green ink, lapis lazuli, and fine dabs of gold.
A novice who shirked his duties to hide under benches, however, would never touch quills or inks, let alone the great books. He lay in the dirt and shadows, his heart pumping, until well after the footsteps had faded. He felt trapped by the notion that someone would see him crawling out from under the bench.
The realization that his brethren would soon pass by on their way to midday prayers finally drove him out. Seeing no one in the yard, he took a deep breath, slid sideways, and scrambled to his feet.
“Napping, Brother Aidan?”
Aidan whirled. A hawk-faced old monk stood in the abbot's doorway, a thin smile on his lips.
The smooth voice continued. “Or just hearing the spiders' confessions before you sweep them away?”
Sickened, Aidan fumbled for words. It had never occurred to him that anyone else might have been with the abbot when Lord Donagh had entered. He should have heeded his instinct to wait. Having been both a fool and a weakling, now he'd reap the results: Brother Nathan ran the scriptorium.
Knowing it was too late, Aidan dropped to one knee. His face burned. “Forgive me, Brother Nathan. I saw them arrive, and I gave in to my curiosity.”
“Curiosity is not a sin that I am aware of,” said Nathan. “Deception, however ⦔ He paused. The air was filled only with the purr of Brother Nathan's elegant but uncompromising nine.
Realizing he'd heard that number faintly from under the bench but had simply ignored it, Aidan forced himself to ask, “How should I atone for my failure?” He expected an order to confess to the abbot as well as to Brother Eamon. No doubt he'd be assigned some unpleasant task to help cleanse his soul.
When he got no response, Aidan gulped against the lump in his throat. He felt his dreams shriveling. “Please guide me,” he pleaded, keeping his gaze on the older monk's feet. Certain Brother Nathan was aware of his
hopes, he added, “I want to be worthy of your work. How can I become more deserving?”
hopes, he added, “I want to be worthy of your work. How can I become more deserving?”
“Sweep,” said Brother Nathan. “That is what brooms are best suited for. Or sit on the bench, which is better suited for that than lying beneath.” He stepped around Aidan to leave.
Aidan leaned on his broom, shuddering in relief. Brother Nathan was letting him off with great kindness and humor.
The departing monk added a few words over his shoulder. “When I think you are suited to copying Holy Scripture,” he said, “I will let you know.”
To Aidan it sounded as though he could sooner expect the return of the Messiah. That, if it took place in the year 1000 as most everyone guessed, was still some fourscore years away. Certainly Aidan would not live to see it. The young monk slowly rose back to both feet, wishing he'd been anywhere else when the abbey's troublesome new guest had arrived.
Trouble had avoided him neatly until then, with just one exception. Having performed well as a student, mastering Latin and memorizing all 150 Psalms, Aidan had eagerly donned the robe of a novice when it had been offered at last. The monks' scratchy gray wool muttered of twenty-one against his skin. He had stopped hearing it
soon enough. Like the scents in a field of flowers, numbers murmured in his ears so continually that they faded unless he tried to hear themâor was startled, as he had been by Lana.
soon enough. Like the scents in a field of flowers, numbers murmured in his ears so continually that they faded unless he tried to hear themâor was startled, as he had been by Lana.
Once cloaked in a monk's robe, however, Aidan had felt obligated to mention the humming of numbers to Brother Eamon. In trying to explain, he had made the mistake of saying that many of his fellow monks brought the number six to his mind. A horrified look had crossed Brother Ãamon's face. The senior monk fretted that Aidan might be bewitched by the Number of the Beast recorded in Saint John's Revelation. He'd assigned Aidan three full days of solitary prayer to inspect his heart. The novice obeyed without protest. To himself, though, Aidan scoffed. Whether the Beast's number was 666 or 616 remained a matter of far-off church debate, according to the abbot, but how anyone could fear any combination of sixes, Aidan didn't know. Sixes were soft-spoken, slow-moving, and kind. Only long contemplation had helped him understand that such deception might be the Beast's secret.
The Beast crossed Aidan's mind now as he recalled the piercing look the girl had given him in the yard. Both her squeals and her wild struggle against the lord's grip could have been caused by a demon. Aidan had a hard time believing that demons could enter through a person's nostrils or ears. If she did have a monster inside her, however,
growling through her eleven, perhaps Brother Eamon was right. Perhaps the numbers he heard came from somewhere much darker than heaven.
growling through her eleven, perhaps Brother Eamon was right. Perhaps the numbers he heard came from somewhere much darker than heaven.
More troubling yet, any demon inside her may have peeked out through her blue eyes and spied him there listening. Certainly something in her had taken notice when their gazes had locked.
Aidan shoved that fear from his heart, loath to believe that the humming of numbers, as natural to him as the sunshine and considerably more dependable, could be powered by evil. No dark force could make
everyone
hum.
everyone
hum.
He could not sweep thoughts of the eleven girl so easily from his mind. Curiosity swelled in him, and after the noon prayers he found an excuse to pass through the guesthouse. Since novices were often expected to tend to guests' needs, they were permitted to come and go freely from that building. The new arrival was not there, not even in the portion reserved for the poorest pilgrims. Aidan began to think the abbot may have taken her outside the compound after all. Perhaps she'd been lodged with servants in one of the cottages huddled near the abbey's gates.
Then, late that afternoon, he spotted pale, feminine fingers draped out of a narrow slot in a stone wall facing the rose garden. She'd been locked in a penitent's cell, the same one where Aidan once had been instructed to pray about numbers and 666. Her fingers reached and dawdled
in the ventilation gap as if they, at least, would be free in the waning sunlight.
in the ventilation gap as if they, at least, would be free in the waning sunlight.
Fortunately for Aidan, the abbey's elders were accustomed to seeing novices weeding the roses. So with a few minutes to spare before Vespers, he crouched in the soft dirt and began weeding his way toward the languishing fingers.
Aidan liked to weed. Plucking unwanted sprouts from among the holiest flowers of Christ was honorable work. In Aidan's first week as a novice, Brother Eamon had explained how weeding mimicked the plucking of sin, bit by bit, from one's soul. Aidan sometimes meditated on that idea as he worked, but mostly he enjoyed the colors, the scents, and the numbers of the roses and of each tiny weed. In removing the intruders, he paid special attention to the veins and shapes of their leaves. When he finally became a scribe, he would draw beautiful leaves and vines into the borders of manuscripts he illuminated.
“Oh! You. Halloo there.”
Aidan started, having almost forgotten that he wasn't just weeding. From his crouch he could see that deep in the recess where her fingers had stretched, the girl's round cheek now pressed to the slit. One brilliant blue eye gazed out at him. Her eleven-ness struck him again, trilling, and he dismissed the concern that had crept over him earlier. That sound couldn't possibly be demonic. It was too radiant, too
distilled, and now he thought he understood a bit more. She wasn't a thief, exactly, but Aidan guessed that the clever seven he'd heard so often from thieves had combined with her girlish four-ness to catapult her past nine and all the way to that intriguing, enticing eleven.
distilled, and now he thought he understood a bit more. She wasn't a thief, exactly, but Aidan guessed that the clever seven he'd heard so often from thieves had combined with her girlish four-ness to catapult her past nine and all the way to that intriguing, enticing eleven.
“You're young, for a monk,” she said. “You can't be much older than I am.”
“I haven't taken my final vows yet,” Aidan murmured. “I'm still just a novice.” He wasn't so young, either; the abbey's thirteen-year-old monk was constantly held up as an example. Four years older, Aidan often felt half as learned or piousâor obedient. Reflexively, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching.
“Are you scared you'll get in trouble if you talk to me?” A taunt lurked in her voice.
He scowled. “Not scared,” he said, but he kept his voice very low.
She sighed. Her feisty tone vanished. “You will, won't you?”
He was almost certain the answer was yes. Idle chatting was frowned upon. Modest and useful speech was permitted until the last evening prayers, but those locked in the penitent cells were left wholly to reflection. Of course, this girl was no monk, so perhaps none of the usual rules applied. Aidan knew that to be wishful thinking, but it allowed him to take a risk that he could not resist.
“You're supposed to be mortifying your flesh and contemplating your sins,” he whispered, hunkering closer so his voice wouldn't drift beyond the roses.
“My flesh is mortified,” she said. “I'm cold and starving and stuck here in the dark. Isn't that enough?”
Aidan didn't bother to mention the small whip in that cell for penitents to punish themselves with. He hadn't beaten himself with it, either. She didn't wait for an answer anyway.
“Never mind that,” she said. “What's your name?”
Afraid he was seeding weeds into his soul instead of plucking them out but unable to stop himself, he told her.
“O'Kirin?” she asked. “I know your sister. How odd I've never met you before.”
“I've been here for most of the last five years,” he explained. “But I've seen you on feast days. When you noticed me in the yard, I thought maybe you knew me. You looked-”
“No,” she said, so hastily that Aidan wondered why she denied it. “I'm Lana,” she continued quickly. “I live down-river near the quarry with my mother.”
“I know,” he replied. “One of Lord Donagh's daughters.”
Even through the narrow slot, her surprise showed. “How did you know he's my father?” she asked, her voice low.
“Everyone knows,” Aidan said, with a shrug. “People like to talk about highborn folk, and they especially like to
gossip about their bastards. Makes 'em more like the rest of us.”
gossip about their bastards. Makes 'em more like the rest of us.”
After a pained silence, she said, “âNatural child' is a kinder way to say it.”
“What's unkind about bastard? 'Tis the truth.” Wishing he could see more of her face, he added, “Besides, it was hardly your fault.”
“He acts like it was,” she said softly. “And so does most everyone else.”
“Donagh can bed any woman he wants, whether the rest of us like it or not.” Aidan tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. His eldest brother, wed to a beautiful wife, had learned this hard lesson firsthand. Relieved it had been only once, those who knew of the affront never questioned whether Liam's young son was actually his. The honor-price Donagh had paid for that trespass had partly funded Aidan's entrance to the monastery, however, so he, at least, could not forget it. The injustice weighed on his own conscience and silently rankled his heart.
“But 'tis harder to ignore when fatherless children are born of it,” he added, feeling a secret bond with Lana. “You're a reminder. People only scowl at you because they don't dare scowl at him. Perhaps they should.” Abruptly realizing that a monk should not speak so frankly, he checked over his shoulder again before finishing lamely, “After all, adultery is a sin.”
“Monks think everything is a sin,” she grumbled. “If I'm so evil, why are you talking to me?”
“I never said you were evil,” he protested, though he'd considered exactly that notion earlier. He didn't reply to the second part of her question. He wanted to tell her she was the only eleven he'd ever met, but after Brother Eamon's reaction, he'd learned to keep his mouth shut about numbers.
Other books
The Vanishing Sculptor by Donita K. Paul
The Parafaith War by Modesitt Jr., L. E.
The Alpine Fury by Mary Daheim
Chains of Redemption by Selina Rosen
Carnal Acts by Sam Alexander
Kiss Kiss by Dahl, Roald
Lone Star Cinderella by Clopton, Debra
Silent Song (Ghostly Rhapsody) by Nieto, Ron C.
A Better Goodbye by John Schulian
Some Like It Hotter (Sweet Life in Seattle #3) by Andrea Simonne
