Chapter Three

“I have brought our abbot back safe if not exactly in one piece.”

Brother Michael turned, his face concerned and attentive, finished drying his hands, and hung the linen towel neatly on the rack to air as he came to listen to what William had to say. “Tell me more.”

“It was not a happy visit, nor did we expect it to be, but… the dam broke at any rate. I would never have believed a man had so much water in him, and—” William broke off suddenly, and his expression changed. “Dag nab it! I left one of our handkerchiefs on the floor of the Poor Clares’ parlour. It was very wet.” He frowned, irritated with himself. Linen was not for throwing away.

“Madeleine… how did she seem? She and John—they were a comfort to one another?”

William’s short, hard laugh of derision dispelled this line of thinking. “No. He could not comfort her, and she would not comfort him. Far from it. She held him responsible.”

Michael’s face puckered in bewilderment. What? His mouth silently shaped the word.

“Aye. Because he was not there for them, so they were two women alone. For sure that did not help their cause, but that’s the way of the world. Nay, the violation and fear and grief had all turned outward in fury and resentment. It was not a good meeting. She reduced him to something very small and soggy indeed. That, with his own grief beside, almost annihilated him, I think. I have done what I could to put him back together, with assurance that he is not to blame and a certain amount of stern talking to on the way home, stressing that the community needs him and weeping has its time but has an end. Seems hard, I know, but I think he was on the point of dissolving. A man needs some iron in his soul to stand upright in some passes. He needed a break from his anguish, I thought. I hope I’ve done right. Be that as it may, he’s well weary, and as disinclined as when we went away for human company. But he has returned resolved to stand steadfast and put in hand the work that waits for him here. We should keep watch, though. He has been in torment that has flung him about until he hardly knew who he was anymore. He has been entirely distraught. He may master it, but then again it could overwhelm him. We’ll have to respect his need for privacy, but mayhap he should not be left too much alone.”

Michael nodded thoughtfully. Then, as these words sank in, he glanced sharply at William. “Are you… you’re not thinking he might despair of life are you?”

William did not reply, and Michael answered his own question, shaking his head emphatically. “Oh, no. No, no! John would never attempt to take his own life! He is a man of God, a man of faith. He would hold such a thing—well, we all would—as serious sin! He would not even permit himself to contemplate it, whatever life threw at him, whatever depths he plumbed. He—Oh God, have mercy—William, I’m so sorry!” Michael stopped short, flushing red in embarrassment. William’s own self-inflicted brush with death had been completely driven from Michael’s mind by his present concern for their abbot. “I am so sorry,” he said again.

William shrugged. “No matter. It’s not me we’re thinking about. And I’m sure you’re right. And moral fortitude was never my strong point. I make no claim to it. I am a coward, and I am used to sin, and our abbot is not: he has a sturdier soul than mine. This will not get the better of him, where it might have finished me—if guilt and family love had ever much concerned me, I mean, which they did not. Besides, an infirmary is the place for watching folk suffer. I cannot imagine but Abbot John must have had enough opportunities to consider how best we might make space in our souls for pain and sorrow.”

Michael looked at him anxiously. “William, truly, I ask your pardon for my insensitivity.” He moved to kneel, but with the sudden speed of an arrow William’s hand shot forward to detain him, grasping him firmly by the arm.

“Brother Michael, I beg you, do not kneel to me. I cannot bear it. There is nothing to confess and nothing to forgive. I take heart to see that my own failures of courage had completely slipped your mind. Please stop thinking about me. Keep your mind on Father John. His plight is what we’re talking about, not me.”

He released his grip, but cautiously, acknowledging Michael’s compassionate grin with a dismissive shake of the head.

“He will try his best,” Michael asserted. “John always gives of his best to any endeavour. Our part will be to trust him and have patience. He will surely weather this storm. It grieves me to hear of the way things went with Madeleine though. Was it still so when you left? Did she not soften toward him?”

“We saw her but the once. I think, to be honest, he was afraid to ask to see her a second time, as so would I have been. He did not have the heart for another drubbing, and I would not have recommended it if he had. The thing’s still a fresh wound in both of them. Besides, Motherwell is within a day’s ride, and in time the shock of this will subside. They’ve been close and good friends until now, so everyone tells me. Sometimes these things harden into lifelong estrangements, but there’s good hope she may come through to a kindlier view of him than she held in the encounter of these last few days.”

Brother Michael considered these words. “God grant it be so. It would break his heart to lose his sister’s kind regard. But you’re right; the griefs we think we shall never come to terms with, in time we do learn to live with. Well, and Father John has said often enough himself in this infirmary, people are but simple really. Whatever befalls anybody, so he thought, if you can reassure them they are safe with you, keep their bowels moving, and find them something they enjoy eating, they will sooner or later come around. So”—Michael smiled—“provided we ensure he has evacuated his bowels and we feed him such delicacies as take his fancy, he’s safe enough in these walls, in this community; in time he will heal.”

Brother Benedict appeared in the doorway, clearing his throat discreetly in advertisement of his presence. “When you have a moment, Brother Michael…”

“I beg pardon, Brother Benedict! I’ve left you with that poor soul waiting for his ointment! Is that all, Father William? Yes? I’m sorry to hear how it went, and I’ll do what I can. Thank you for your good care of him. He will mend, I have no doubt of it, but for sure he will need our patience a good long while, as well as our prayer.”

Later in the novitiate Brother Benedict recounted to an intent audience what scraps he had gleaned of this exchange.

“Brother Michael looked quite downcast, and Father William seemed mighty fed up as well. I think it was about our abbot, and they were saying the journey had not brought comfort or any kind of peace. It sounded as though Father William was telling Brother Michael that someone was angry with Father John, but I don’t know why or what had happened. His sister, I think. Anyway Brother Michael finished by saying we must be patient while Father Abbot becomes more himself again and pray for him as we wait. And Brother Michael said that Father Abbot himself had always thought if a man keeps his bowels open and has appetizing things to eat, he’ll get better from most things given time. I wonder if he’ll come to chapel tonight and tomorrow, or if we’ll still have Father Chad at Chapter in the morning.”

“Were you listening at the door?” demanded Brother Robert, not usually held up as an example of ethical rectitude himself, but assailed by twinges of jealousy that Benedict’s position in the infirmary secured him the centre of attention.

“I was not!” Brother Benedict responded with indignation. “You can’t always help overhearing what’s said, can you? Besides, nobody made you sit here and listen to it yourself!”

Brother Robert could think of no answer to this and was relieved when the talk turned to a discussion among themselves as to what the snatch of conversation Benedict had heard might mean. Those who had glimpsed Abbot John about the place on the day he left (none of them had seen him since his return) offered gloomy predictions of slow recovery. Only Brother Conradus said nothing, but listened to his brothers, a look of slow determination hardening into resolve in his gentle dark brown eyes. He had duties in the kitchen during the afternoon. Brother Cormac wanted to sort through the last of the previous year’s apples up in the store and needed Conradus to take responsibility for preparing the supper. He slipped away from the company of his brothers’ recreation in the novitiate and made his way unobtrusively but purposefully along to the kitchen, deserted now in the early afternoon. Nobody else would come in until after None.

He scooped out flour from the big crock and fetched three brown eggs from the bowl in the pantry; one still had a tiny, fluffy, brown feather attached, which Conradus took a moment to marvel at. So soft. So light. So impossibly downy.

He nipped quickly into the garden and selected with care just the growing tips from the nettles and sorrel in their patch. He paused only briefly to watch the wren go to her nest tucked under the eaves. Back in the kitchen, he chopped his herbs finely and made the pastry with deft, economical movements, using water cold and fresh drawn from the well. While it rested, he lit a fire of sticks in the bread oven—hot and fast was what he wanted on this occasion. As the oven heated up, he went for cream out of the cloth-covered bowl on the stone shelf of the dairy built against the north wall. He gathered it all together with focus and speed: he was ready to make his miracle in pastry.

Just fifteen minutes in the hot oven was all it required, and then Brother Conradus paused to inhale the aroma and appreciate the glorious golden perfection of what he had created. It was a profound relief to him that he met no one in the cloister as he carried his fragrant gift of love and restoration along; he would have been so disappointed to be turned back now.

Abbot John crossed his room to answer the knock. Weary beyond measure, he had no wish to see anyone. All he wanted was to be left alone. He knew that from somewhere he must find the strength to begin again, to take his mind off his own sorrow and find a generous heart in loving those who needed him once more. He was not sure how he would do that. At the moment it felt beyond him. He did not want to open the door, but he did it.

On the threshold, definitely quaking, stood Brother Conradus carrying something wrapped in a cloth.

“Come in,” said John kindly, he hoped, if not enthusiastically.

With a look of determination, Brother Conradus intruded himself into this space of palpable pain. He went to the table and set down what he carried.

“I made you some of those little tarts you especially like, Father,” he said, “with sorrel and nettles in a savoury custard.”

John nodded and willed his features into a smile. The two of them looked at each other. “Thank you, Brother,” he said.

He expected then that Conradus would have the sensitivity to withdraw. But the young monk, though he would no longer look his abbot in the eye, obstinately stood his ground.

“I’m sorry, Father,” he said. “I have two brothers and three sisters, and I well know what it is to long to be left in peace. And I know the look on the face of somebody who needs to be left alone. But the only thing is—how will you ever know how much we love you if we cannot come near you? We have to bother you a bit to let you know how much we care.”

With great courage, as time passed with no reply forthcoming, Conradus stole a glance at the other man’s face and was startled to see that his abbot looked completely mortified. Before the novice could think of any good means of stopping him, John got down on his knees before him and kissed the ground at his feet.

“I confess my faults of ingratitude and self-absorption,” he said humbly, “and I beg your understanding in this difficult time. Please pray for me. I ask forgiveness of God and of you, my brother. Please be patient with me.”

A terrible feeling came over Brother Conradus. He felt as though his chest had contracted and his scalp had shrunk. His belly filled with wild panic. His mouth went so dry he couldn’t speak. He had absolutely no doubt that if anybody chanced upon this scene and asked any questions, they would despise him utterly for troubling his poor superior with his trifling stupid pastries in the poor man’s hour of grief. And as these thoughts assailed and condemned him, his abbot waited, kneeling on the ground as every monk must until his brother—whoever he may be, even the newest novice—absolve him of his sin with honest forgiveness.

Then Brother Conradus found his second wind. He thought what he wanted to say might be too impertinent to be countenanced. He wondered briefly what his novice master would think and wished Father Theodore, whom he trusted implicitly, had been on hand to ask. But there was nobody but himself and his abbot, kneeling ashamed and contrite before him, waiting to be forgiven.

“John,” said Brother Conradus, and all the love he surely felt was there in his voice. “John who loves to heal—of course God forgives you, my brother, and so do I, with all my heart. John, please come back to us.”

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. When Conradus said that, with his characteristic kindhearted sincerity, he had no idea in his mind at all of a likely outcome. He certainly hadn’t expected to make his abbot cry.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, shut the door!” said John, tears pouring down his face as he stood up. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I can’t help this; it’s not like me, but it’s just how I am at the moment. No—please—it’s not your fault; every little thing knocks me off balance.”

Conradus hesitated. “Did you mean shut the door with me outside it or inside it?” he said uncertainly. And then despite his tears John began to laugh.

“Oh, for mercy’s sake, inside! Look, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to subject you to this. Come and sit down for five minutes. I am so sorry.”

He turned and led the way to the chairs by his hearth and fumbled for his handkerchief to restore some order to his running nose and tear-stained face. Conradus joined him but picked up the plate of crisp, golden tarts cooked to perfection and brought it with him. He took off the covering cloth. They smelled wonderful.

“Please just try one,” he begged. “It’ll make you feel less wobbly if you eat properly.” In saying this, Conradus was merely echoing a belief held firmly by his mother; but he had never known her to be wrong. Brother Conradus could imagine no circumstance of life, no matter how bad, that could not be comforted by a nice cup of chamomile tea and a light snack.

And John, penitent, accepted a pastry. It was delicious. He ate two more. And he could not help noticing that though nothing had changed—his mother had still been savagely murdered, his sister still seemed to have shut him out of her heart—the simple, friendly companionship of this young man, and the delectable little pastries he had so lovingly made, did make a difference. John did feel comforted.

For maybe twenty minutes Brother Conradus sat chatting to his abbot, feeding him his works of art conjured out of wild sorrel, the tips of nettles, butter, fresh-milled flour, crushed peppercorns and salt, and cream risen from yesterday’s milking, and he watched John being led slowly out of complete despair into something that could be called neither contentment nor peace but was an observable improvement. He talked to him about the kitchen garden and all that had flourished there, how the long cold winter and the slow wet spring meant the cherries would be especially good this year, now that the warmth had come. He talked to him about the infirmary and how he’d had a run on cinnamon eggnog with heather honey, which the old men liked so much that Brother Michael had to ration them to one a day in case they got too fat for him to lift. He told him about the morning he had helped Brother Mark capture in a linen bag a swarm of bees that had gathered on a low bough of the old yew tree—the one by itself down by the river—and how scared he had been of the bees but determined not to let Brother Mark see at all. And all the time as he prattled away comfortably, he watched John’s face; then when he judged he had managed the change he’d hoped to try for, he sat forward in his seat and said, “It’s been grand to have the luxury of a chair, Father, and I’m more grateful than I can say for you giving me your time like this when you have so much on your mind. I’ll let you be now; but you’ll stay with us, won’t you? It’s… it’s a decision to slip down the black pit or not; it doesn’t just happen.”

He said this in the same peaceable conversational tone as the rest of the quiet flow of talk he had poured gently over his abbot, but John raised his eyes to him, considering those words.

“Is it?”

“Yes,” Conradus asserted simply. “Truly it is. I know it is. Our griefs and sorrows, our dark night—they are like a well. And whether to fall down it or whether to draw upon it as something of value is a choice we make. My mother told me this, and I have found it to be true.”

Despite the intensity with which his abbot regarded him, now that it was said, Conradus did not feel nervous anymore. This is only John who loves to heal and needs my help, he told himself.

John nodded slowly. “I think my mother would have said the same,” he said.

“Well, there you are then. She might still guide you through this. Maybe you haven’t lost all of her after all. Perhaps it’s still possible to be the lad she would have been proud of.”

“Oh, don’t! Please don’t! You’ll set me off again. But I do hear you. And please pray for me; I’ll be doing my very best.”

“I pray for you every day,” said Conradus shyly. “I always have, ever since I entered. Actually, it’s not just me. I think we all do.”

He took his leave then and set off with all haste to the kitchen, a little bit worried lest he had stayed too long with his abbot and left himself without the time he needed for the supper preparation.

He set to work peeling onions and meticulously washing leeks of the mud that got into every fold and crevice. The dried peas he had soaked and boiled already. He hurried into the garden to gather fresh herbs and took the time to close his eyes and inhale the fragrance of marjoram, rosemary, thyme, sage, and bay. Especially the bay. He held a leaf between his fingers, using his nails to puncture the hard surface and release the scent from the veins of the leaf. Conradus thought the God who made anything smell so glorious could be trusted to heal and renew good hope in anyone; then he recalled himself to what he was supposed to be doing and hurried back into the kitchen.

He took the slotted ladle with the longest handle and carefully scooped out the poultry bones from the kettle of stock that he had left to simmer over the embers the previous night, after skimming off the hardened fat that had congealed on the surface as it cooled through the day. This he scraped into a smaller pot, in which he would sauté the field mushrooms he’d picked last week and left drying in the pantry.

There was plenty of bread from the morning’s baking. Later he would apportion butter from the big bowl into the smaller dishes to set out on the table. First he must light the fire, because it took a long while to bring the stock back up to a boil.

He did all this mindfully and methodically. Conradus put all of his soul into his cooking; it was his heart song to God.

Once he had satisfied himself that the fire had taken well and he could put his attention elsewhere for a while, Conradus thought he should check the progress of the goat’s curds dripping into a bowl in the pantry. He intended to set aside the whey to make scones for tomorrow’s midday meal and planned to shape the curds into small cheeses rolled in pepper and oatmeal. He had used nettles in starting the cheese, and they added a pleasant green flavour of their own.

The cheese was doing well but had a way to go yet. In the morning he would be expected to be at his studies in the novitiate schoolroom, which probably meant handing over responsibility for the midday meal to Brother Cormac. Conradus thought it would be wise to have his pepper and oatmeal mixed in anticipation of this, and left with written instructions.

He needed to grind some pepper for the soup anyway, so he thought he’d do it all at once, which was quicker than two smaller lots.

He measured out a goodly amount of black peppercorns: these were valuable and not to be wasted. It was quite a luxury to use this amount just as a garnish for cheese, but Conradus thought the delicious blend of flavours would be appreciated. He wanted to make a poultry marinade as well, and a dressing for the salad leaves they would serve with the cheese and scones; and all of this must be done today and set aside for Brother Cormac’s use in the morning. He took the larger stone mortar and half filled it with peppercorns, then took it to the lower of the two tables, where he set to work briskly, pounding expertly and rhythmically with the pestle.

He reflected with satisfaction on the acquisition of goats’ milk as he did this. The community’s cows gave enough for their own use with surplus to sell, so they had no need of keeping any other milk animals. Besides Brother Stephen had no fondness for goats, regarding them as troublesome beasts needing constant watching. So goat’s cheese did not often come their way, which Brother Conradus regretted. He liked its piquancy and considered the light, tangy taste to be pleasing to the palate and an ideal accompaniment to oatcakes or newly made bread.

This batch Father William had brought to the kitchen, having taken it in lieu of rent that a tenant could not pay. It did not cover the deficit. Neither lenient nor harsh, William simply assessed that (by the look of her) she would have no means to make up arrears, so there would be little point in carrying the debt over. The abbey was a merciful landlord, and neither Brother Ambrose nor the abbot wished to see the poor woman homeless; so William asked her what she had if she had no money. She had brought some herbs, a pot of honey, and the morning’s milking from her goats. He satisfied himself with that and wrote off the remainder. The woman had been relieved and grateful and sought to bless him for his kindness, at which William looked surprised and faintly irritated.

“God bless you, good Father!’ she exclaimed. “God will reward you for this kindness! Your reward will be in heaven, Father, sure it will!”

William looked at her. Neither kindness nor reward had been in his sights at all. He wanted the money now, and if there was no money to be had he would have to take what he could get. That was all. Had this been St Dunstan’s and he still its prior, he would have turned her out of her cottage without a second thought. He found her gratitude both unwelcome and uncomfortable.

“Be sure you get your situation sorted out by Michaelmas. Thank you for this,” was all he said. He brought the pail of milk across to the kitchen himself: “Can you use this?” he asked.

“Oh, wonderful! Goats’ milk! God reward you! That’s welcome indeed!” Conradus swooped upon the snow-white milk with delight, and William marvelled that the merest glance at the pail was enough to tell Conradus what he had—he needed neither to inquire nor taste it—the colour was enough. He felt uneasy with this expression of gratitude as well: it seemed beyond justice that God should reward one man twice for the same pail of goats’ milk, especially as it hadn’t come because of his effort in the first place. It crossed his mind to say as much, but he thought it might be too complicated to explain his train of thought, so he simply said, “She’ll need her bucket back. Don’t get it mixed up with ours. Here’s honey and herbs too. I hope you can use them.”

Contentedly Conradus pounded the peppercorns into a coarse powder, not too fine. The fiery, crunchy little pieces that escaped complete pulverizing made the perfect foil to the fresh flavour and crumbly consistency he was aiming for with the cheese. He stirred the half-ground pepper around in the mortar and continued to pound it.

As he worked, though he watched carefully to ensure he achieved the right consistency, his mind wandered from Father William to Brother Cormac, who would be along in a while to prepare the supper with him. Both of these men puzzled him, and of both of them he was more than a little afraid.

He found William’s manner terse, aloof, and chilly, and enigmatic, too. As a novice, Brother Conradus had little to do with the solemnly professed brothers in their separate world of full commitment to the order. But as a kitchener he worked closely with Brother Cormac every day and frequently encountered William, who had reinstated the required regular counting of the cutlery and inspection of the kitchen furnishings and implements. Brother Cormac usually went across to the checker with orders and lists, happy to leave much of the cooking to his capable novice, but Brother Conradus had plenty of opportunity to observe Father William when he came to the kitchen with word of deliveries or, in the case of small packages, brought them over himself.

Conradus saw the unreachable spirit, the shield of irony in William’s eyes that were the colour of the North Sea on a winter’s day. He saw the tension in William’s body, taut and quick like a fox and as cautious as a hunting cat, and he found no place for connection, no small welcoming chink that might permit any kind of friendship to establish.

But he had also observed William in conversation with their abbot and had seen a change in him then, as though an opaque screen drew back, revealing both love and respect and also an indescribable softness that Conradus would not have imagined was there if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. It was certainly not evident when William looked at Conradus.

In Brother Conradus’s opinion, Father William was alarming, and so was Brother Cormac. Chiefly what he feared in Brother Cormac was his legendary temper. Cormac himself would have been more startled than amused to know he had this reputation; “mildly irritable at times” is how he would have described himself. But tales and reminiscences had worked their way down to the novitiate, ascribing to the kitchener a volcanic predisposition to uncontrollable rage. The fact that Conradus had seen no sign of it thus far made that buried layer of molten fire even more terrifying to him. How might one know what would kindle the smouldering wrath to a blaze? How vulnerable would he be if he unwittingly broke open the door that kept the savage beast confined until now in Cormac’s more or less stable exterior?

Certainly Brother Cormac could be irascible when the pressure was on, but that was normal in a kitchen. Brother Conradus expected, and got, peremptory instructions. He understood that; the work was hot and fast and complicated and had to be accurate. It brought out whatever was there in people. But so far he had seen no glimpse of the volatility he had heard about in Brother Cormac in connection with the previous kitchener, an old man who had died some time ago, whom it was said Cormac loved and fought and once had hated. Even so, Brother Conradus thought it well to keep a long way on the right side of Brother Cormac.

Because of this, a nagging anxiety clouded the afternoon. He had asked no permission to make the little savoury tarts for his abbot; he thought it likely he would have been denied permission if he had asked, so he did not. Other people, he noticed, so often failed to grasp the almost magical power of food to comfort and restore, especially if they were indifferent cooks themselves. The ingredients he had used were plentiful, but he had no business to be making anything at all without permission—frankly, that was theft. He felt glad he had done it, but he also knew he would have to confess it; and if he faced the prospect with courage, he knew that it must be to Brother Cormac, not Father Theodore, that his confession be made. This gave him a bad feeling in his belly. He was frightened. He tried to console himself with the reflection that he could expect to have the kitchen to himself for another half hour, in which he could enjoy seasoning the soup to the peak of perfection; but he still couldn’t help feeling jittery.

The pepper being now exactly as he wanted it, Conradus thought he would take it to the pantry and leave it there out of sight of Brother Cormac. He wanted to make the salad dressing and mix the pepper with the oatmeal, but he wanted to oversee the proportions and mix his ingredients gradually. He thought at this stage things would go better without Brother Cormac’s interference, but he had no authority to say so. He must manage the outcome with prudent circumspection.

He laid the pestle down on the table and, on his way to the larder with the pepper, remembered that he needed to put some in the soup. He retraced his steps, carrying the heavy stone mortar across to the kettle of soup, which gave off a promising aroma as it began to heat up. The soup kettle was large and very stable, standing on its own legs over the fire in the pit beneath it. Conradus rested the stone mortar on the rim of the pot, holding it steady with his left hand while he took a small handful with his right to sprinkle into the broth.

As he did so, Brother Cormac entered the kitchen with a quick, light step (even the way he walked sounded impatient), glanced across at the novice balancing the mortar on the edge of the soup kettle, and said, “What the devil are you doing it like that for?”

Already nervous of Cormac’s arrival, Brother Conradus started violently, his hand shook, and the balanced mortar tipped and slid neatly into the soup, taking down with it enough pepper to ruin upwards of five kettles of broth. The wasted expense of the luxury of the pepper and the prospect of the entire community doomed to eat the soup for supper hit Brother Conradus simultaneously with such force that he did not even notice the greasy liquid dripping down his linen apron and coating his hand. The colour drained from his face.

“Sorry, did I startle you?” Brother Cormac came to stand at the side of his motionless novice. “What’s the matter? What did you have in there?”

“About four handfuls of ground pepper.” The toneless horror in the novice’s voice, the pallor of his face, and the fact that he had begun to tremble made it clear to Cormac that this was very bad. He looked at Conradus with sympathy.

“Never mind. It’ll be a bit spicier than usual, that’s all.”

Conradus shook his head. “It’ll be unfit to eat,” he said.

Cormac shrugged. “Well, we don’t have that option. That’s what’s for supper. We can’t just waste it. What did you want all that pepper for anyway?”

Brother Conradus knew that such a significant quantity of something so expensive must not be taken twice. The cheeses for tomorrow could be rolled in the oatmeal and maybe chopped herbs, but replacement pepper would be entirely out of the question. And then there was the other matter. Slowly, still uncharacteristically pale, like a man in a dream, he turned to face Brother Cormac. Cormac took two hasty steps back. It would not be the first time one of his brothers in community had hit him. He felt greatly relieved, though surprised, when his kitchen novice fell to his knees before him.

“I confess my fault, Brother Cormac.” The novice was unconsciously wringing his hands, consumed by his dread. “I made Father Abbot some sorrel custard pastries to comfort him because he hasn’t been eating; and as well as that, I ground all that pepper to make a crust for the goat cheese for tomorrow.”

Cormac waited. Nothing else seemed to be forthcoming. “Er… thank you,” he said. “So… what have you done wrong?”

This experience was a complete novelty to Cormac. Though he’d had more occasions than he could count to beg forgiveness of his brethren, on not one solitary occasion had anyone seen the need to beg Cormac’s pardon for anything during any of his years in monastic life. He gave more offense than he took. There had been a moment, years ago, with Brother Andrew—but even then, Andrew had not knelt before him; he just said he was sorry. Cormac had never given the matter any thought; it had certainly never occurred to him that when someone finally did kneel in contrition and beg his pardon he would be unable to identify a reason.

“The pepper,” mumbled the novice, “and the other ingredients. I didn’t ask permission, in case you said no. It was a disobedience. I should have asked. And such a waste, too. Such a dreadful, dreadful waste.”

Brother Cormac began to laugh. “Oh, mother of God, that’s what the stuff’s for, isn’t it? Look, get up off your knees. No, I’m sorry, what I mean is, if you have offended, which I cannot see you have, then God forgives you, my brother, and so do I. Nay, don’t distress yourself; get up. There now, come and sit here for a minute, and tell me about Father John. Did he eat what you made him? Yes? Well, there you are then. If I had said no—which I doubt—I’d have been wrong, wouldn’t I? God bless you, none of the rest of us have managed to get past the wall he’s built around himself; it’s well done if you got through. What was it you said you made for him?”

Conradus told Brother Cormac about the little pastries, and that Father Abbot had seemed not eager to be disturbed but they had talked a while. When he looked back on what had passed between them, it seemed intensely private; to even think of relaying it to another would be a betrayal.

“He asked that we should pray for him” was all Conradus volunteered. “And I said we would, and we do.”

Brother Cormac read from the young man’s hesitation that there had been more to the conversation than he was willing to say, but he had no wish to pry into what he sensed must have been vulnerable territory.

“Sounds as though you did well,” he commented. “Anyway, change that apron and wash your hands, and let’s crack on with the supper. Best we say I made the soup. They’d never believe otherwise anyway. Tip some milk in it: that might calm it down.”

If he had sinned, then sitting through the evening meal watching his brethren struggling through their soup was penance enough for Brother Conradus. He felt ashamed of his cowardice when later, as the servers brought through the dishes, he heard Brother Thaddeus say, “Your turn to cook this evening, Cormac?” and Brother Cormac reply, “What of it? You’ve had good food, and I’m sure you feel you’ve had plenty. Come and take a turn yourself if you can do better.”

But he thought somebody must have got Brother Cormac all wrong. The warmth of kindness in which he had found himself wrapped had been palpable, for all it was casual and unsentimental. Yes, he could imagine that Cormac might be capable of firing up too quickly and speaking in haste, but he knew for sure that he would never be afraid of him now. Perhaps the cheese and the pepper and the soup were a worthwhile trade after all.

Brother Conradus had a feeling, as he trod quietly with his community into chapel for Compline, of something in a wider dimension slipping into its socket. This day had held fear and grief, with weariness, anxiety, disappointment, contrition, and tears. But where men suffered, they had been lifted up by ordinary kindness, not by saintly men but by brothers as flawed as themselves who were willing simply to be kind and to try to understand. As the day ended and night folded the abbey down into the Great Silence, its rhythms and the way it chose to follow made absolute sense to Brother Conradus. He was, he thought, in the place where he wanted to be.

The stillness of the abbey’s night could discover a man’s terrors. In its deep, dark hours, the souls within the silent stone walls found themselves taken down, down with the whole of the natural world into the little death of the small hours.

Getting up for the first office of the day at two o’clock in the morning was a discipline that took everything a man had. Strange, then, that the brothers knew this as a precious time, when the naked soul wrenched from sleep in the womb of night touched God in a way that had no parallels in the liturgies of the daylight hours. The remoteness of sleep still upon them, as the watchman took the lantern around to ensure that none began to doze, the murmur of plainchant rose and fell against the thick endometrium of dark, a beating heart of prayer that never ceased, never went off duty.

It was during the night, when all conversation was prohibited, that men had their wrestling Jacob moments: when they struggled, when they knew how bruised they’d been, but also when they were healed.

Oftentimes when they gathered again for the daybreak liturgy of Lauds, a brother would seem different from the man they’d seen tread quietly out of chapel after Compline, his face shuttered and defeated as he trudged wearily up the stairs on his way to bed. The God of stars and arcane transformations would have met with him in the difficult passage of the night and pressed a finger to his soul, and there left its print.

The light came early on a cloudless day seven weeks before the solstice, three weeks on from the nightmare of Abbot John’s visit to Motherwell; and when he heard the ringing of the bell for the office of the dawn, John was conscious that something further had shifted in his soul. He had prepared carefully what he wanted to say to his community in Chapter today, and he had a sense of the wounds in his soul beginning to granulate. All was not well, but his healing had moved along in the passing of time since his equilibrium had been so comprehensively shattered. And he had slept soundly, which made all the difference.

Father Gilbert read the chapter for that day, a beautiful May morning with the sound of birdsong carrying through the chapter house door that stood open to let in the fresh air and the joy of the sunshine. The chapter for the day was part of Benedict’s discourse on the kind of man the abbot should be, and this section admonished the abbot to have no personal preferences among the brothers and not to elevate any above the others except as a man’s own merit made appropriate.

Abbot John spoke to them then.

“Brothers, forgive me if you’d been hoping for some words of wisdom about this morning’s chapter on the importance of your abbot not having favourites. I have no favourites; you all irritate me unbearably at one time or another, as I do you. Um… that was a joke, though I see from your faces that some of you didn’t realize that. Sorry… that means I must look more irritable than I meant to, for much of the time.

“Anyway, it’s Ascension Day next week, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m begging your indulgence now; please bear with me, for I want to make you listen to something I need to hear myself, something I’m trying to understand and trying to believe, but I haven’t quite got there yet.

“What’s been snagging at my soul in recent days is the thing Jesus said to Mary Magdalene in the story of Easter morning that we listened to a few weeks ago. He comes to her at this moment in which she thinks she’s lost everything because she’s lost him. Her life has gone grey, and all its meaning is snuffed out. In the hour before dawn when everything is still hopelessly dark, she can’t see him—can’t recognize him, I mean—and she begs him to tell her where they have laid her Lord, so she can go and weep over the corpse of what used to be. But then Christ says her name, and suddenly she sees the living reality of him in her new situation. Naturally, in astonishment and delight she reaches out to embrace him. But he says, ‘Noli me tangere—don’t touch me; for I have not yet ascended to the Father.’ I have never understood these strange words, but I think I have found a glimpse into them in recent days.

“I don’t need to tell you of my sorrow and anguish in this recent time—my mother murdered and my sister raped and left for dead. It’s been just dreadful. It has tortured me beyond bearing to contemplate the thought of it. At the centre of the horror, the thing that really crucified me was knowing that if I had been there and not here, I might have prevented it. I am used to the idea of a vocation being costly, but not to contemplating just how costly it could be for my family.

“In the middle of all this, I’ve felt entombed. Like a bird battering and bruising itself against the bars of its cage, my spirit has battered against the confines of earthly being, bruised by the appalling, inescapable realities of the things that happened, especially to my sister, who has been damaged—I think, irreparably.

“Crucified, then entombed—but there came a time to come back into the hurting, stabbing light of day, to try to be something better and more workable than simply out of my mind with horror, tormented by the nightmare my family went through.

“Now this is the thing I wanted to talk to you about. I have found, in this strange time, that I cannot bear to be touched. My own humanity has become unbearable to me. I have felt that if anyone touches me I will break completely, beyond what I feel I can endure. I thank you so much for having respected that. Nobody has tried to enfold me in an embrace to console me or put an arm around my shoulders or any of that. You have given me the noli me tangere space I’ve needed, emerging from the death of what reality used to be for me.

“But I am noticing that Christ said to Mary not just, ‘Don’t touch me,’ but, ‘Don’t touch me; for I am not yet ascended to the Father,’ which implies imminent change about to take place. Now then, here is my hope. Crucifixion, yes; emerging from the tomb into the painful light, yes; noli me tangere, yes; but what came next is that Christ did ascend to the Father, and when that happened, people all over the place were put into touch with him, accessing the transformative power of his life.

“My brothers, please don’t think I am saying, ‘Look at me, I am exactly like Christ’; for I am not! I am painfully, miserably conscious of how childishly self-centred my response has been to the impact of this horror and grief. All I mean is, in looking forward to the story of the Ascension, I have glimpsed hope. What I have been through felt like the tearing agony of crucifixion; before God, it did! I am not exaggerating. The only respite from it was when I fell into such darkness of despair it was like being sealed in a tomb. The strange imperative of seeming unable to bear the touch of any human being has felt like living in a kind of molten state, like a butterfly losing the integrity of its being in the pupation time of the chrysalis: to be touched, pried open, would bring complete disintegration. Again my brothers, I thank you for honouring that.

“But something in me sees—and loses sight of and then sees again and then loses again—a vision that where I am now, noli me tangere, is not the final word. This is but the hour before the dawn. The time of healing will come, and when it does, my spirit will find its way up to God’s light and grace, will be enabled to rise above what has happened, will be empowered to grow into something new.

“What I was is dead and buried; what I am is in a half-formed, dissolved condition that barely holds together from day to day. I feel unrecognizable even to those who knew me the best. But I know that when I have grown into the new, when I have managed to crawl into the lap of God, I will be able to bear human touch again. You will be able to touch me because I shall be held fast in the heart of the Father.

“I feel the need to apologize to you, for I am not there yet. At the moment I am only half-formed—disintegrated, destroyed, pupated. Please bear with me and continue to pray for me—that in due course my spirit will rise out of this. Ascension Day drawing near has given me new hope—that there is a way up out of this, that one day my life will begin again—not as a reversion to what it used to be, but as a resurrection.”

John spoke these words into a profound, receptive silence unsullied by restlessness. The community was gathered in focus and intent. They cared about him; they wanted his healing; they had prayed for him. He felt humbled by this unspoken strength that upheld him. When he stopped speaking, he had a sense of something being cleansed in him, an easing of pain allowing a possibility of peace. He could feel his way to the source of this change; it was because they had heard him, because they saw what life had done to him, and they held him gently, without questioning or reproof. They were giving him time to find his feet again, trusting him to come through into the light where they waited and held on for him. John bowed his head, grateful.

None of this meant that everything was instantly better; sorrow is not like that. Still John lay awake in bed most nights, sleep eluding him. Still he found he needed solitude and quiet ness. But he felt able to pick up the work that needed his attention. Again he felt humbled by his brothers’ support on every side. Brother Ambrose or Father William would come to his lodging with bills to sign, and the matter was dealt with merely by writing his name and adding his seal. The precentor and sacristan managed the liturgical rhythm of monastic life without his input, and Father Theodore kept the novices safely under his own wing with no need for consultation with their abbot. Brother Michael oversaw the infirmary and Brother Cormac the kitchen. The gardens, the farm, the pottery, the guest house, and the school continued to run smoothly because they were well-managed. Father Chad was happy to intercept most of their guests. His brothers shielded him from involvement beyond what was strictly necessary. And gradually he was coming to himself again, getting the feel and the life of the place back into his hands as quickly as he could.

He had no way to tell his community how grateful he felt; he just hoped they felt it, as he felt the solid bulwark of their love and prayer. He did his best for them and for God, as they were also doing their best, but he could not evade the knowledge that something remained numbed and shuttered at the core of himself. He was still frozen in the space of noli me tangere. He wondered if he would ever again, without any effort in the doing of it, reach out to touch with healing hands, put out his hand without stopping to think, to ascertain what the matter was and what he could do to help. He did not see what more he or anyone could do to thaw out the numbness that had taken hold of his heart.

Dutifully, every day, he had prayed for his sister and held her protectively in the light of God’s love. He trusted that one day, by some means, she could be healed.

On that eve of the feast of the Ascension, Abbot John looked the picture of self-possession and composure as he sat at his capacious table spread with neat heaps of bills from the checker brought for the endorsement of his seal. Cautiously, and with a certain degree of amazement, he acknowledged to himself that he actually felt quite cheerful and no longer overwhelmed. He accorded himself a measure of approval. It had been, after all, only a month since the appalling news had been brought to him. He had struggled through to functionality with the best speed he could muster.

“Father John.”

John looked up from the heap of documents on his table to see William standing there. It came into his mind that when anybody else looked at him, he felt merely held in that person’s line of vision. When William looked at him, he felt as though those eyes were somehow penetrating the inmost recesses of his being. It occurred to him that William must have been a very good superior, if only he hadn’t been such a thoroughly bad one.

“Yes?” he said.

“The door is wide open, else I should have knocked. Is it too late to ask if I may come in?”

“It would appear so. I will warn you, though, if you have brought me any more of your difficult contracts and deeds to look over, I shall fall irrecoverably into a dementia only to escape them.”

William nodded thoughtfully. “You will have to tell me it has happened; else how shall I know? But look—am I disturbing you?”

“As you see. I have this pesky cellarer’s assistant who lets nothing by him, not the smallest footling thing, and is making me examine everything because he has some shady ambition to drag us out of our Gospel simplicity into well-being and prosperity. I’m minded to get rid of him, but he won’t go away. What is it?”

“Well, I have something on my conscience.”

“On your what? Heaven bless us, this is new!”

Abbot John pushed his chair back from the table. Somewhat to his surprise, he found it moved silently. Looking down at the feet of it he saw that someone—presumably Tom—had stuck a little pad of felted wool under each foot. John wondered if every time he had pushed his chair back, it had grated on Brother Tom’s nerves as well as on the stone flags of the floor. Tom had never said anything.

“Come in then, thou rogue; sit thee down. What’s the thorn that has discovered thy conscience?”

William followed his abbot across to the two chairs near the hearth. Tom had laid the fire but this May morning had left it unlit. The men sat down together beside where the fire would have been.

“Since you’re sitting here, and for once not prattling incontinently about some incomprehensible scheme of your own to make me sleep uneasy as you consolidate our wealth, there’s something I’ve been intending to raise with you too, when the moment presented.”

“Go on then,” William responded. “You’re my abbot. You first. ’Tis fitting.”

From time to time when John found his thoughts focusing on William, he marvelled at how valuable he had become to their community and gave silent thanks that they had not in lack of faith and in simple ignorance thrown this strange jewel away. During these awful weeks of struggle, John was vaguely aware that William had never been far from his side; quietly watching, working tirelessly to see that the day-to-day running of the abbey ran smoothly, that their investments and purchases were sound and their rents paid on time. Nobody tried to cheat William; it wasn’t worth it, in all kinds of ways. Abbot John understood the cellarer’s work well enough to know that this obedience fulfilled faithfully and intelligently made all the difference in the world to the abbot’s work. He knew that, through all the nightmare, William had seen to it that the socket into which his daily life fitted was protective and secure. John understood too that in his detached and undemonstrative way, this shrewd and calculating soul loved him, but without burdening him with the usual human demands made by those who love—to be first, to be special, to be beheld and understood. Content to watch over him quietly, William kept his distance, but there was something about having him there that made John feel safe. He felt that in this man he had a friend who would notice and observe all his weaknesses, everything he felt ashamed of and wished he had not done, with perfect equanimity, simply seeing it was so. And he thought that in this if in nothing else, he saw something Christlike in William—acceptance of John’s humanity, just as it was. Neither in awe of John’s status nor afraid of his anguish, William’s acceptance felt restful and even healing.

At this moment he was waiting imperturbably for his abbot to speak.

“It was only I wanted to say thank you,” said John, “for everything you are doing here, which is quite literally worth its weight in gold, as you surely know. But also for all that you said to me the day we met with Madeleine. I’ve had occasion, many times in the course of more sleepless nights than I care to remember, to cling quite desperately to what you said to me then. It might be overconfident to say it’s pulled me through, but I know it stopped me from going insane over it all.”

William inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment of this. Under the composure of his features, a smile of appreciation faintly gleamed. “If I have helped, I am most glad,” he replied, “for I believe I owe you everything.”

It was rare for him to step out from behind the habitual irony of his persona, and John looked at him, intrigued. He had discovered that the gentle insults of affection suited William better than the claustrophobia of emotion. Hardly ever did he speak his heart in simple terms, and when he did, he was not comfortable staying long in that open intimacy. So John moved on.

“But what did you have on your ‘conscience’, as I think you called it?”

“Well… Father…”

John frowned, puzzled and intrigued. In the first place William did not often address him as Father. “My lord abbot,” he said more often, with a certain sardonic flourish, a hint of exaggerated formality, or often he avoided any form of address at all. The simplicity and intimacy of “Father” did not sit comfortably with him. Evidently whatever he had come to discuss, he was in earnest about it—and did not find it easy to say.

“Just a minute,” said John; he got up from his chair, crossed the room, and closed the door to the cloister. The door to the abbey court, where villagers and visitors from afar most often entered his lodge, remained shut at all times except for specific admittance. But the cloister door stood open much of the time. John liked to be accessible to his brothers in community.

“What is it?” he asked as he took his seat again. “What’s amiss?”

“I don’t know that I can ask this. It seems a lot to ask.”

“Out with it, man! What?”

“Well, Father, when you passed through Chesterfield, you said, on your return home to take up the reins of the abbacy here, you came across one of us from St Dunstan’s. You said you found him destitute.”

John nodded. “I did. And left him as I found him, for which I have felt much ashamed. For a while my mind turned to him over and again, wondering what might have become of him; but of late there seems to have been little of me left over to contemplate any sorrows but my own. And when I say it, I am ashamed of that too.”

William nodded. “Aye, likewise. You spoke to me of him when first I came here, but my own concerns pushed his away to the edge of my thoughts, and I’m sorry for it. But my intention wasn’t to make you ashamed nor to wallow in my own shame either. I have opportunity to do that any day of the week.”

The admission, spoken with dry humour, was, John judged, nonetheless sincere. William fascinated him. Sometimes he appeared hard, even ruthless; then he would say something like this that opened a narrow window offering a surprising glimpse into an unexpected interior. He was not without sensitivity or morality, whatever shell of indifference he chose for his shelter.

“I wondered,” said William then, humbly and directly, “if we might go and look for him. It has plagued my conscience dreadfully. I feel safe here, but I was not safe out there, and nor will he be. How can I lift no finger to help him nor inquire what has become of him? How can I help myself to the peace and order of this house, knowing that I have left him to the mercy of the street? It has come to me more and more strongly that I should go and find him—nay, if I’m honest, that I should have gone long before this. But… well, the truth is, I am afraid to go.

“I know you have hardly had the chance to give your new position the attention it deserves. I know I have taken up inordinate quantities of your time and attention already. I know you have been through so much, it is an impertinence to ask you anything. I realize you must have matters awaiting your perusal and response stacked up to the rafters almost. I see full well that I have no right to ask. But though from our point of view it is an unwelcome extra intrusion into what has already been chaotic enough, I am asking myself if from his point of view he may have reached despair or fallen sick… or the Lord alone knows what may have befallen him.

“I think I must go and see if I can’t find him, but I am afraid to go alone, for they do not love me in Chesterfield, nor anywhere else. And besides, you know where we might look for him.”

“So when you say, ‘Can we go and look for him?’ you are meaning, ‘Can we go right now?’”

William did not reply. He looked at his abbot. As John’s eyes met the curious, shifting surface of William’s gaze, like all places stony and wild, like all dangerous seas under a bleak sky, he found it odd that he had come to like him so much, and odder still to read in those aloof, feral eyes that William trusted him.

“Are you satisfied that Brother Ambrose—or ‘Saint Ambrose’ as I believe the brothers are calling him since he got his new assistant—can cope without your help?”

William nodded.

“Everything is in beautiful order, my lord abbot. Some promising investments are made—I am just waiting for word of a ship coming in to harbour, and I don’t expect that quite yet. The Lady Day rents are all finally in—after a certain degree of necessary persecution. Everything else is sorted and folded and squared off and nailed down. If Saint Ambrose can’t cope with things as they are, you need to get a new cellarer.”

“Well, I think I have a new cellarer, in all but name, and you are doing a grand job, which I appreciate more than I can tell you. So we’ll go together then?”

A gleam of gratitude illumined William’s eyes.

“One thing, if I am to go with you, I ask in return.”

William raised one eyebrow in silent inquiry.

“Tell me, William de Bulmer, what makes a good abbot in your estimation?”

Amusement flickered then. “I am surprised you ask that of me. Nobody here, so far as I knew, felt moved to link the word good with anything I ever did, let alone the kind of prior I made at St Dunstan’s!”

“Maybe. Even so?”

“Well, I can tell you readily enough, for it’s a very simple thing. What makes a good abbot is anticipation. When times are hard, you have to have faith and vision for your community. When times are good, you have to be prudent and frugal and recognize that every pendulum swings. You have not only to see what your men need to be content now, but what they will need as times change, as they move on—as they grow more sophisticated or educated or complacent or weary or just old. You have to stay ahead of them. You have to know what they will think, what they will do, and what they are likely to say.

“It’s the same thing as makes a good mother for a family—when the children are hungry, she has the pot already bubbling; when they are tired, her feet are already on the path home from the market; when the baby starts to toddle and get adventurous, she has already mended the hole the fox made in the fence.”

John listened to this, intrigued. “I’d not have had you down as a man who gave much thought to being a good mother!”

William’s face twisted in the dry irony of something that wasn’t really a smile. “I do not give it much thought. But I know what a bad mother is.”

John regarded him thoughtfully. “I see,” he said. William shifted, uneasy, lest that should be true.

“Then, can we go?”

“It seems a good time,” John affirmed. “All is in hand here, and circumstances have kept me from becoming engrossed in matters I could not easily leave. Thanks in the main to your good work, all things temporal are well tended. As to matters spiritual, I judge myself still in a condition to be of very little use for wise counsel. This thing should have been dealt with before in any case; so yes, let’s go! Will you see to our mounts and some food for the journey? Chesterfield is three days’ ride from here at best. I’ll look for Father Chad and arrange the rest; we can start in the morning, straight after we’ve said the morrow Mass. Had you stopping places along the way already in mind?”

William hesitated. “I thought…” His eyes flickered, and he looked away for a moment, unwilling to meet his abbot’s gaze. John wondered why.

“I thought we might save some money; this dry spell looks set to continue, and the nights are warm for May. Let’s see how we get on rolled in a blanket in the hedgerow or borrow a bed in a barn somewhere.”

John shrugged, as happy with this plan as any. Inns and hostels usually smelt rank and had flea infestations. An open-air bed had much to commend it. He accepted the suggestion on face value. Not until much later when he sat in quiet meditation before Vespers did the source of William’s disquiet dawn on him. It was because he was afraid. He could not face the reception that might await him at the various religious houses that lay on their path to Chesterfield.