The Hour Before Dawn

“You two,” said Brother Cormac with (as he pointed out to them quite forcibly) all charity and evangelical forbearance, “are nothing but gannets. You are the most horrible specimens of fallen humanity imaginable. Gluttony on legs, both of you! You make Brother Stephen’s fattest sow look like a starved refugee in flight from Skellig Michael. Here am I, striving against all opposition to set an uplifting example to this overweight novice let loose on our kitchen with his fixation for pastry and fancy ways with a pigeon breast, and do you support my efforts to guide him into some kind of monastic abstinence and restraint? No. You hang around here at all times of the day like seagulls following the plow. What is it now?”

“We only wondered if you had some of those mushroom pasties left over from the midday meal,” Father Francis began pitifully, “but if you think we’d be setting a bad example to Brother Conradus…”

“… we’d be willing to settle for your usual stodge—bread and honey or anything,” Brother Tom hastily concluded, not liking the direction Father Francis seemed to be taking.

“You can’t have the pasties. There are some, but our abbot’s back, bringing an entourage with him, who will all have to be fed.”

“John’s back? Since when? Who’s he brought? Ye saints and little fishes! Why did no one think to tell me? I’d better take his pasties straight over and wait on his table!”

“It’s not what you’d call a formal gathering, by all accounts.” Cormac went to find the tray of pasties. “Oh, look—these two are a bit misshapen; I doubt they’d be missed. William de Bulmer has returned in one piece, avoiding suicide and every other attempt on his life. They have gathered up another stray monk, sans eyes and tongue and the Lord only knows what else. And Father John has brought his sister back to live in Peartree Cottage.”

“Can I come too?” asked Francis as Brother Cormac stacked the tasty savouries of Brother Conradus’s making to be taken to the abbot’s lodging. “I mean, that’s a lot of pasties to carry on one platter. And no doubt they’ll be wanting a jug of ale as well.”

So it was that their abbot, having made his way home not long before Vespers, taking it in turns with William to ride or walk while Madeleine rode with Oswald on William’s grey palfrey, found his lodging besieged by a deputation of his brothers bearing refreshments and agog with curiosity.

“God bless you, brothers, we haven’t even washed or barely set down our packs! By heaven, word travels fast in this house! My sister, Madeleine, I think you all know—she has been here many times to stay before. And this is Father Oswald, who will be part of this community. He’s another delinquent reprobate of the house of St Dunstan—what did you say, William? You wager I can’t spell that? I certainly can! But he, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, though undeniably depraved is not a patch on his prior when it comes to rank villainy. And we’ve weathered him; so Father Oswald should fit right in. Sadly, he cannot eat these delectable tidbits you’ve brought us because they’d choke him. Brother Cormac, Father Francis, if you would take him across to the kitchen and find him some soup or some bread and milk, that would be better. He’ll need an apron or a cloth, if you’ll kindly provide one. He has no tongue, and that makes it tricky to eat. I would come with you, but I have one more task to attend to before the light fades or the Vespers bell starts to ring. Father Oswald, these are your new brothers: Father Francis, currently helping in the guest house; Brother Thomas, who is my esquire; Brother Cormac, who keeps our pastry chef under control in the kitchen.”

Oswald stood and, with all senses alert, took into both his hands first Francis’s warm dry, gentle hand, then Tom’s brawny hand with the rough knuckles and callused palm, then Cormac’s long, bony hand.

“He cannot see and though he can speak to you, at first you’re not likely to get what he’s saying,” remarked William. “But he is not deaf, and what wits he ever had are still intact: so nobody will need to speak to him loudly and slowly.”

Francis laughed. “Will you come with us then to the kitchen, Father Oswald? You’ll be hungry after your journey, and it seems unfair to have you standing by while these three wolf down all those pasties.”

“Oh—” added William as Oswald put out his hand to be led away, “when you walk with a blind man, you should let him take your arm, and you lead him. If you take his arm and steer him, he being unable to see where to go, you make him too vulnerable, in reality as well as in how he feels. If you let him take your arm instead, he will feel more secure and you will progress more effectively. Isn’t that right, Mistress Hazell?”

Madeleine nodded emphatically, her eyes full of laughter. “’Tis exactly so,” she said, watching with approval as Cormac held the door open and Oswald passed through with confidence, having taken Francis’s arm.

“So,” said Abbot John, “I know you are itching to see Peartree Cottage, Madeleine. There is just time to go and take a quick look before Vespers. Will you come with us, Brother Thomas? William thinks there may be some small repairs to be done, and you’ll be our handiest man for that.”

“You three go ahead—you can see the garden anyway—while I run across to the checker and fetch the key,” William said. “I’ll be with you in no time.”

The close came within the boundary of the outer wall, itself bounded with a low wall separating it from the greensward around the church. Madeleine saw at once she would be safe there: no one could come to the close without entering through the great gates at the porter’s permission. Because they were enclosed in this way, the gardens as well as the houses were small, and they were few. Those who had bought corrodies lived in them, and someone had recently died. Peartree Cottage, as its name suggested, had an ancient fruit tree, its bark silver-lichened, its twigs and branches gnarled and twisty, growing at the front.

“Yes, this gate needs repair, which is what William said,” John remarked. They examined it together.

“The hinge has rusted; the wood isn’t rotten. That’s easily repaired,” said Brother Tom.

“Did he so? Father William is making very free with my time!” But Tom did not look as though he minded.

Madeleine had slipped into the little garden at the front and was examining its plants with delight. “We have a whole pharmacy here!” she exclaimed. “Somebody knew what they were doing!”

From the checker William came walking, his light, swift step only slightly wearied by their trek home. “Your key, good madam. Will you let us in?” He gave it into her hand, and, excited, she unlocked the house.

The low doorway with its pointed arch gave directly into the main room of the cottage. The substantial fireplace had been swept clean of ashes, but the cooking irons still hung from their nails on the walls, the pot was still hanging from its chain. A table and two stools were there and, on the board, two pewter plates, two wooden bowls, two earthenware beakers of Brother Thaddeus’s making, a candlestick with a candle half-burned still in it, a knife, and a handful of spoons—some wood, some horn. “That candle is beeswax, not tallow,” said Madeleine contentedly.

A ladder staircase led up out of this room, and Madeleine climbed it into the bedroom, where a wooden bedstead stood against the chimney wall, with no mattress, but a blanket folded neatly on its boards. A wooden chest stood under the little window and a chamber pot under the bed. “This is perfect… perfect!” she whispered.

“If you go to the infirmary in the morning, Brother Michael will help you make a mattress,” John said.

They went carefully down the narrow staircase, and Madeleine unlatched the door at the back of the room. It led into a small scullery, where a stone floor and a capacious stone sink, with a wooden pail and an earthenware pitcher left in it, provided a place for washing. From there a door opened into the garden behind the cottage, where two apple trees grew, and a profusion of herbs.

“The henhouse could go right there!” Madeleine whipped around, her eyes alight, for Brother Tom’s agreement. “At your service, my lady,” he said.

“Friends, by the light I think the Vespers bell will soon be rung,” said Abbot John after he felt the garden had been adequately inspected. “Madeleine, we can come again tomorrow. You can keep the key anyway.”

They trooped back into the cottage, and Brother Tom went through to the front to check again what he would need for the gate. John crossed the room to the fireplace to look up the chimney. “I did have it swept!” said William instantly.

“This is so timely,” John said. Turning back to them, his face happy, he was almost knocked off his feet by his sister’s sudden embrace. “Thank you, my brother, thank you, thank you!” She hugged him tight as he held her close to him. “My sister, my dear little sister,” he murmured. “I love you so much.”

William had turned his back on this scene of family tenderness and was counting the spoons on the table and checking that the drinking vessels were not cracked or chipped when he felt a tap on his shoulder. “This was your idea, Brother.” He turned and found himself looking into her eyes, shining with happiness. “God reward you! God reward you!” As she suddenly, shyly hugged him and released him again, he laughed, saying, “Yes, I think he just did!”

“It’s a tight little cottage, all of stone and no thatch. I have a key. It’s walled at the back, and the abbey gates are shut at night. What’s to be afraid of? Thank you, my brother. I shall be safe here. And now there’s your Vespers bell.”

“Stay in the guest house tonight, and we will make you comfortable in your cottage tomorrow,” said John as they walked from the close the short distance to the church.

“She most certainly does!” cut in William. “With your permission, Father Abbot! If you can be of assistance to Brother Walafrid, we shall be grateful, Madeleine—especially if you can make a better bottle of wine than his present weird concoctions. You have already made an elegant job of sewing Oswald’s eyes, which none of us could do, so for a start I think this is us repaying you. A surgeon’s fees are not cheap. Another midwife is always welcome for the village also, and that’s obviously not something we offer at present—well, only for the ewes. I understand you can keep accounts. I sorely need some help, especially around Lady Day and Michaelmas when we get the rents in. We shall work your fingers to the bone. We shall keep you up late and get you up early. Think you not for a moment this cottage comes unearned, for it does not! There is more work to put your hand to than you can possibly imagine. I don’t know how we did without you!”

They parted from Madeleine in the nave of the church where a few devout villagers sat in the benches here and there. Tom walked ahead into the choir, but William paused, bending his head close to hear his abbot’s quiet words as the two of them went around the parish altar into the choir together. “My friend, you are a genius. What a kind touch of healing that was. God bless you. I owe you so much.”

“Nay, idiot; I owe you my life,” William’s reply was audible only to John as he left his abbot’s side to take his seat in his stall.

As he sat down, he saw John had paused and was looking at him. He recognized in a flash that the word idiot would not do, however affectionately meant. John had become his friend, but he was his abbot first.

In a discreet gesture he smote his breast. “Mea culpa,” he murmured respectfully, and his abbot nodded and walked on to his stall.

The whole community could see that their abbot had returned to them in a different frame of mind. They observed him at Vespers and at Compline, and they saw he had found peace. A sense of well-being and relief spread through them all. Without question they had loved him and upheld him in the extremity of his grief; but when the leader of a community loses hope and courage, the ripples spread to the edges and back again. The bleeding away of vitality does not confine itself to the man. A lightness travelled through the common life that suppertime as the brothers rejoiced in their abbot coming home to them whole again.

On the following morning, the eve of Pentecost, Father Chad read to them the chapter of the day—a portion of a long chapter spread over four days, on the tools of the spiritual craft.

Father Chad picked up where the reader of the day before had left off, reminding the brothers that they must be faithful in obeying every day what God had laid upon them: loving holy chastity, never indulging in hatred of anybody at all, never allowing bitterness to take root in their souls, not giving way to jealousy or entertaining themselves by picking fights with each other. They were to run away from any conceitedness and smug pride, treat the senior monks with profound respect and be gentle with the young ones. They were to pray especially for those who disliked them or with whom they never could get on. If any quarrel did arise between them, both the Rule and the Bible laid down that they must not let the sun set without making their peace. And they should never, ever despair of God’s mercy.

Abbot and brothers together heard these wise and kind words, letting the generosity and goodness of Benedict’s way feed their hearts and sink into their souls. The silence of reflection lengthened as they meditated on all they had heard. And then they turned their attention to what their abbot had to say.

“I’m sorry, this isn’t a proper homily—I’ve been thinking so hard about what I want to say to you that I hadn’t even read today’s chapter very carefully to think of any comment I could make upon it, though it is beautiful.

“I don’t know if this is news or teaching or what it is: I’m just telling you about a time when I’ve seen the Gospel meet real life. Friends, tomorrow is Pentecost. Today is the last day in Ascensiontide. My thanks to Father Chad for his pastoral care of you while I have been away.

“So we achieved what we set out to do. We found Father Oswald and brought him home. You will all have met him by now.

“When I spoke to you last, all of us gathered together like this, it was the day before Ascension Day. Less than two weeks have passed since then, but so much has changed. I know you have held us—me—steadily in your prayers, and I am more grateful than I can express to you. What has happened has been a kind of miracle, and though I’ve been thinking so hard about how to explain it to you, I’m still not sure I have the words for what I want to say.

“I don’t delude myself that you hang onto every word I impart to you in Chapter here, but I think maybe you might remember what I said to you before I went away. I was devastated by what happened to my sister. Everything seemed to be shattered and blown to pieces. When I went to see her, she could barely look at me. I was shredded inside by the sense of guilt that my family had been attacked with no one to protect and shield them. I could not bear human company. Nor could she. Father William came with me to Chesterfield, to search for Oswald. You know well what Father William’s trials have been; he has felt lonely and isolated from human society. He is the first to say he brought his trouble on his own head, but be that as it may, he has felt frightened and alone, and for many a year before all this his faith meant little to him and human company even less.

“Three people, all entirely involved in their own troubles, tormented by their own demons, eaten up with guilt and shame and fear, wanting neither to touch nor be touched, but just to be left alone to heal after all that had happened.

“We’d all three of us got to the pupation stage, I guess. We had come through what life had handed out to us, deservedly or not, but were each in a strange hermit’s cell of shock, coming to terms with what had happened and who and what that made us now.

“Then we met Father Oswald, and suddenly everything changed, because he needed our help. Down on my knees in the street at his side, trying to see in the half-light of the alleyway just what cruelty had been worked on him, I forgot about myself and that I couldn’t bear anyone to touch me. He’s blind. He needed someone to hold his hand. In similar wise, Father William had to get over himself and his aversion for all things human because Father Oswald needed his help to eat and manage even the basics of life. So we came to Motherwell, where my sister, Madeleine, had taken refuge with the Poor Clares. Cold and remote in shock and hurt, she remained reluctant to meet us—until she saw Father Oswald. She could not bear to greet me with any kind of contact, but she came to the grille to touch Oswald’s face, to look with care at what he needed to have done. She is skilled in the healing arts, and she sutured his eyes for him, which I was nervous of doing.

“Do you remember I said to you, before we went away, that one day I would find my way to the Father and be able to bear the vulnerability of human touch again?

“Now this is where words begin to fail me—when I try to explain the grace I have glimpsed. Please make the best you can of my stumbling offering. God is all compassion. God, three in one, is community in love. God is creator, who goes on making us and remaking us even when our hearts are broken and our lives shattered. He searches for every shard of who we once were and makes something new of all those pieces and his love.

“It was when we—me, Madeleine, William—forgot ourselves, and our hearts were drawn beyond our own troubles into compassion for someone else, that healing began for each of us. It was when we worked together and drew into a common way that cheerfulness began again: laughter and fresh courage and the reassurance that we were forgiven and no longer alone. Out of the hopelessness came a new beginning. From the black tomb to the cold air of the uncertain light of dawn. Then from that frozen beginning to an ascent into the Father heart of God.

“We have come home different—I mean different because we were hurt as well as because we were healed. Madeleine, William, I—our souls are a bit scarred and knocked about, and we are more vulnerable now. But that’s not a bad thing; woundedness can be a source of compassion, like the sweet water springs that breach the intactness of the earth. And we owe so much—so very much—to Father Oswald, for finding us where we were hurt and bringing us home.”

When John had finished speaking, and the day’s news and novices’ confessions were shared, the young men of the novitiate rose to leave. They closed the door behind them with anxious care, Brother Benedict, last out, achieving a good result with only a sharp click of the latch to indicate they had gone. Their novice master would follow them at the conclusion of Chapter; for now they went ahead of him up the day stairs to the novitiate, where they took their places in the teaching circle of assorted stools and short benches. This was really supposed to be a time of reflective silence, and sometimes it was. They seated themselves quietly and without fuss, as they had been taught, but then Brother Cassian said, “I can hardly believe the cruelty of all that they did to him.”

The faint stir among the group affirmed this as their common mind and the focus of their thoughts.

“Brother Michael says we have to be really careful of what we give him to eat.” Conscious of the extra status his work in the infirmary conferred upon him, Brother Benedict enjoyed the immediate attention of his seven fellow novices. “I never thought about it before, but of course you can’t swallow without a tongue; that’s why he dribbles all the time. And because he can’t swallow properly, he just has to poke things down his throat or kind of toss them back. Brother Michael says there’s a huge chance of the food going down the wrong way and choking him—to death even! And even if it doesn’t choke him, it could get right down into his chest and give him pneumonia, like Father William.”

Brother Robert laughed. “‘Pneumonia’ is quite a good description of Father William—kind of pale and thin with scary eyes.”

“Yes, yes, we know what you meant. Is that how Father William got pneumonia then? Choked on his food?”

Brother Benedict stopped, aware he had committed an indiscretion. The world of the novices was kept very separate from the life of the professed brothers, but the infirmary work gave glimpses into everybody’s secrets. “No,” he said.

“Forget what I just said! I shouldn’t have. He… no. No, I mustn’t say. Anyway we have to be very watchful for Father Oswald and hit him hard on the back if he goes purple or looks like he’s choking. It’s hard to tell, actually, because sometimes his food starts to go down the wrong way, and then he has to hawk it back up again for another try. Hawking or choking; choking or hawking—it’s a bit tense, especially when it might be a matter of life and death. It’ll be every meal too!”

“Father John’s sister sewed his eyes up for him,” continued Brother Benedict, revelling in his role as a mine of information this May morning. “She can do surgery and deliver babies and read and write as good as a priest, apparently. She’s come to live here. I don’t know why. Perhaps they need her to help look after Father Oswald. Perhaps she was afraid to live alone after she was set upon.”

They heard the footfall of their novice master on the stairs, and conversation ceased.

Brother Thomas built Madeleine a henhouse and repaired her gate. William brought her two sheepskins from the store they kept to sell. He fetched her all the provisions she needed to create a home and larder, and she grew to know the sound of his approaching footsteps.

Quite often, as evening fell and the day’s work in the checker was done, instead of making his way directly to the cloister for Vespers, William would cross the abbey court in the other direction toward the close and make sure that all was well in Peartree Cottage.

He brought her firewood and linen sheets. “I’m sorry—just now we can only spare two. Can you manage with that? That should see you through the summer; you can wash them and dry them in a day in this weather.”

Most of all, he brought her friendship. His wit struck sparks from hers, and she liked to see his blue-green eyes alight with laughter and his thin face break into the merriment of his smile.

“William never smiles, not really. I don’t know what you’ve done to him!” said Brother Tom.

Brother Tom commented on this with astonishment to Father John as he cleared the ashes from the hearth for the last time now that the evenings could be counted warm enough even for the comfort of guests. “I didn’t know that man could smile! No wonder they thought she was a witch! Then again, maybe it’s a miracle—it’s so hard to tell!”

He carried on sweeping, unaware he had made any particular impression. But his abbot had stopped what he was doing and was listening to him with greater attention than Tom would have expected.

Spring moved into summer, and the elderflowers hung heavy on the trees. The lime flowers gave out their beautiful fragrance, the hay stood almost ready for mowing, and the fine days took on a languor of heat as the weather held dry.

Abbot John came through the wooden gate in the wall, which Brother Thomas had fixed. Finding the door ajar, he went into the cottage to look for Madeleine. Hearing voices from outside at the back, he continued into the scullery, where the door to the garden stood open. Outside he saw his sister reprimanding his cellarer’s assistant in no uncertain terms. He stopped just within the doorway and stood quietly to watch this exchange.

“No, good brother, that is not a weed! I turn my back five minutes, and you take out some of the best herbs in my garden! Why didn’t you pay attention to what I told you? Put it back!”

John noticed with a certain astonishment that William looked distinctly chastened.

“Grow? Of course it’ll grow! It’s a plant! William, have you never done any gardening before in all your life?”

“You know…” The sun was in William’s eyes, but he squinted in her direction anyway. “… they will never burn you for a witch in these parts, but I have little evidence to stand in the way of their ducking you in the village pond for a scold!”

“Aye, but they’ll change their tune when they find out who was on the receiving end of the scolding, think you not? To work, monk! Labore est orare!”

“A shred of respect and a cup of ale wouldn’t go amiss, sweet madam. Oh, God bless us, here’s my abbot. Is it to defend me or am I to be harried now from every side?”

John came out into the garden and walked between the herb beds and under the apple trees to where they stood.

“I’m relieved to see that Father William is capable of getting his hands dirty on occasion,” he said. “But there are some matters awaiting his attention. Brother Ambrose is feeling badly neglected. He’s just been holding forth to me at some length about the grading and storing of the fleeces that are coming off the shearing. He says they need sorting, and lanolin brings him out in a rash. He wants to know if he’s to ask Brother Thomas to clean the ditches around the top meadow or if you engaged somebody from the village, and if so, whom? He’s lost the bill for the cruets you ordered for the refectory. Do you know where it is? I think he said they would cost nine shillings and four pence, and I hope that’s not true. He’s also talking to me about one Samuel Walton, rope maker, concerning cords for girths and cords for tethering the horses out in the pasture. He also has things to say about how many ambras of white salt and lump salt we may require. Oh, and he wonders if you intended a hundred and fifty horseshoes or only a hundred, and in consequence, how many nails? I’m impressed at myself remembering that complex shopping list, so I hope you are too; but I’ll be heartily glad if you can come and attend to the business yourself. To set Father William to work pulling weeds is not playing to his strengths, my sister, and I think you might be equal to the task yourself. Is all well with the cottage and the garden? Did Brother Stephen bring you a sheepskin for your bed? Bless you then. I’ll be seeing you anon. Father William, I’ll walk over with you.”

The two men went back through the cottage, Madeleine waving a cheery farewell as they left her among the garden herbs, preparing to take some cuttings from the rosemary and the pinks.

“One word only,” said John gently as he closed the cottage gate behind them. “Boundaries.”

They walked to the end of the close in silence. “She needs a little help to settle in,” said William in casual tone. “She has some ghosts to lay to rest but seems to me to be doing well.” He shrugged, easy, imperturbable. “Still, she’ll do just fine by herself now, for sure.”

“William,” John said, “you’re falling in love with my sister, and throwing dust in my eyes is not going to work. Your place here is precarious, but hers is even more so. You put one foot across that boundary and you put her home at risk, and possibly yours as well. You can’t afford to do this. The path you’re treading is ill-advised. You have to let this go.”

“How does that work then? We are but people, individuals. It’s not possible, surely, to be a friend to someone without spending time with her.”

John shook his head. “She must make her own friends among the folk she finds here—layfolk, not the monks—where are you going?”

“To the checker—that way. You told me to sort out the purchases with Brother Ambrose.”

“Oh, never mind Ambrose! He can wait five minutes to find out about his cords and his ambras of salt. You’re coming with me because this is important.”

They continued in silence toward the principal buildings of the abbey, the abbot’s lodge opening onto the court as well as the cloister. Just before they reached the door, they were hailed from behind. “Ah, Father William! I’ve been looking for you all over!”

They both turned to respond, and William looked at his abbot as Brother Ambrose stooped momentarily, his hands to his knees, out of breath.

John shook his head no, just the slightest movement, and William waited without speaking.

“Better?” said Abbot John in a friendly, genial tone as Ambrose righted himself. “I have apprised Father William of the things he must attend to, and he will be with you presently,” he continued before Ambrose could say anything. “Do not fret. He knows and will give this his proper attention within the hour. I’m sorry, Ambrose—I’ve kept him busy with other things, but he will be all yours in a little while.”

William still said nothing. Ambrose turned back for the checker, and John opened the door to his lodge. They entered to find Brother Thomas sweeping the floor. “Thanks, friend!” said John cheerfully. “That looks better, but can I ask you to set the task aside for a brief while? I have to speak with William.”

Brother Tom swept the dust he had gathered to the edge of the room and propped the broom against the wall, standing with its bristles on the dust to keep that anchored. He moved obediently toward the cloister door, and John caught the expression on his face. He saw that Tom was beginning to feel hurt by the intimacy he perceived between his abbot and William.

He followed Brother Thomas, stopping the door with his hand as Tom began to pull it shut. Tom looked back in surprise. “Brother, tonight I still have no one to dine with me and intended to do as I told you and eat in the frater. But why don’t you come and eat supper with me? I think I’ve seen less of you since you’ve been my esquire than in all the years we’ve been together in community.”

John felt relieved to see the warmth in Tom’s eyes. “Aye, gladly. I have to finish off a repair to a worm-eaten chest I started yesterday for Theodore, so I’ll go and do that while you’re busy now. I’ll come back and clean up here once it’s properly fixed, if that suits you.”

With a smile and a nod of thanks, John closed the door behind him. “Where were we?” he said.

“I believe you were in the middle of telling me that I am falling in love with your sister and ought to keep out of her way.”

“Don’t go frosty on me, William; that’s a power game. Are you telling me I’m wrong?” John found it hard, always, to hold the gaze of those pale eyes regarding him thoughtfully, but he did. In the end it was William who looked away, saying “No, I’m not.”

John sat examining this ambiguous reply, suspecting that he had been offered it as a dodge to secure time. He decided that if time was what William needed, he could have it. So he said nothing.

“Oh—I’m sorry!” said William, suddenly realizing John thought he was being evasive. “I meant, ‘no, I’m not telling you you’re wrong,’ not, ‘no, I don’t care for Madeleine.’”

John took this in. He knew it was true, but at the same time he almost wished it had not been said. Naming anything brings it one step further into manifest reality.

“I guess this is part of why I never thought to invite Madeleine and my mother here before,” mused John. “Women and monastic communities of men can be a fair disastrous combination. We have enough trouble with Our Lady of Sorrows in the chapel. Women guests fall in love with the monks, or the monks fall in love with them, and either way there’s trouble.”

“On the basis of what? If it’s plain to me you’re getting closer to Madeleine than you should be, do you think it won’t be noticeable to anyone else?”

“Because… because of the way my head thinks,” William answered him slowly.

“Whatever emotions I might feel, however deep or strong they may be, there is always a dispassionate watcher in my head, evaluating, noticing, commenting. I never lose myself totally to anything. It can be quite wearisome sometimes—an endless internal critique of all I say and do. And I know—oh, now I’m going to have to be honest with you, and that isn’t easy to do either, so please don’t be angry with me—I know that Madeline will never see that I… what I feel.

“I know she will not see because at the level of my being that feels—my emotional self, my heart—I myself cannot properly see what she feels about me. On that level of my being, unless I could… oh, unless I could hold her in my arms and have her as my own—which, don’t you worry, I’m not even dreaming of… well, that is to say, yes, I am dreaming of it, but I have no intention of doing any such thing. But unless I could do that, my heart would never really know for sure what she feels about me, because I want it so much I can’t believe it could be true.

“That’s my heart. But my head, watching and commenting, deduces dispassionately that one of two things must be true. Either she does not care for me as I do for her—or else she does.

“And my head knows that a woman who has not long since been raped, not once but repeatedly, is bound to feel nervous around men. If she had even a whiff of a notion of what I feel for her and did not reciprocate it, then she would find it threatening to be with me by herself.

“On the other hand, if she is drawn to me as I am to her, I know that—just like me—without the confirmation, the assurance that comes with the embrace of love, she would never quite let herself believe that I care for her because she too much wants it to be true.

“So since she is not nervous in my company and finds me not the slightest bit threatening, I have deduced that what I feel for her is indeed reciprocated, but it is channelled into friendly banter, where I think it’s safe.”

“Safe? God save and help us! You think what you have just told me represents anything that could be called safe? William, you have been the superior of a community! Put yourself in my shoes! If you had just had this conversation, would you be blithely describing such a relationship as safe?”

The faintest smile moved William’s mouth. “I think you have never grasped quite what our community was like, Father John. What the men did with each other, and what they did with the maids, never interested me. I focused my attention on what they did with the money. In fact, I have wondered if there was something of retribution for this in the attack Oswald suffered. I meant it when I told you he was no angel. So long as they kept themselves on the right side of the undergarments of the aristocracy, I didn’t intervene overmuch or attempt to curtail the activities of the men of my house.”

John had no answer for this. “Oh, dear.” William sighed. “You look appalled.”

“No. Not personally. At least not in this respect. I think I’ve said to you before, I do not—normally—like closeness. I do not attach. Human relationship feels somewhat imprisoning to me. I have not been pure, sexually, but I have been solitary.”

Their eyes met. “Thank God you are honest at least,” said John, “but, William, this with Madeleine has got to stop—not slow down or rein in a little: stop.”

William’s face betrayed no emotion beyond the flicker of his eyes John had come to recognize as the sign that all was far from well.

“That will be hard on her,” he replied softly after thinking on John’s words for a short while. “She is very vulnerable. She has no friends here.”

“Exactly. She is completely vulnerable. And she never will make friends if this continues; all she will make is scandal, because what I have seen, others will see too. The way you look at her, the way you make her laugh, the way she is so free in how she speaks to you and you to her… there is no distance, there is no caution. Are you telling me you cannot see this?”

Reluctantly William shook his head. “I can see it perfectly well,” he admitted, “but I’d been telling myself it would be all right—I could manage it with grace, let it run its course and die, so neither Madeleine nor anyone else would ever know.”

“Monastic celibacy is such a balancing act,” said John more gently. “It’s nigh impossible to keep your heart open and humanly tender, but still keep a guard on your relationships with others so that warmth does not slide into an exclusive intimacy of one kind or another. For apart from this disastrous friendship with Madeleine, you are too close to me as well, in some ways. Too familiar.”

As he said that, it was as though a painful remoteness closed around William, who leaned forward on his stool, his elbows on his knees, the lower part of his face resting on his hands. He moved his head slightly, rubbing his mouth thoughtfully against his hand. Then he was just still. John realized that despite his perceptiveness and subtle intelligence, when it came to personal relationships, William was in effect still a novice. He had simply ignored that whole territory for most of his life. John felt the struggle and the sadness in his brother; the familiar healer’s stab of sharp compassion passed like a blade through his gut.

William sat up straight to look at him. “It is Christ who has done this,” he said. “He broke me open. He has made me vulnerable. It is too painful, John, and I’m not used to it. What can I do? What will be my refuge now? Without you, without Madeleine—” He shook his head, the words tailing into silence again.

“Yes, I do!” In a sudden, convulsive movement William clutched both hands to his own belly, as if it hurt him badly. “Ah! It feels so… ah!”

John waited, watching the agonized restlessness as William tried to become reconciled to this new perspective.

“I was supposed to do this years ago, wasn’t I? Not in middle life. This belongs to the novitiate! Well, I feel suitably foolish and embarrassed. I might have hoped by midlife I should have found the dignity of some stability—which I had before Christ broke me open.”

“A hard shell is not the same thing as dignity,” John said quietly. “The only constructive way to deal with this is simply to take the love and share it out. Notice it, feel it, and give it away. The love that wants to pour out to Madeleine—and, God bless you, to me—give some to Ambrose, give some to Tom, to Germanus, to Francis, to Father Chad.”

At that William suddenly laughed. “I was doing all right until you mentioned Father Chad! Lord, have mercy! Does anyone love Chad?”

“Leave that one alone for a minute,” said William. “This is difficult enough. Please don’t bring Father Chad into the mix. Can I be clear about something? Are you asking me not to see Madeleine? To avoid her?”

“If she does,” said his abbot gently, “she will conclude she was mistaken—that you were only being kind, to help her settle in, and we will be able to retrieve a more appropriate balance of relationship. She will be glad she made no real indiscretion and hope you did not see how she felt for you. She will look for friends among the villagers who come to her for help. She will find the community is her friend and will watch over her and not let her be lonely. You must do this, for I tell you, William, you are playing with fire. Let things, as they are, go one step further and you will have her in your arms; then she will end up having to be placed in a women’s community, while you look for employment with a merchant of some kind in York. Such emotions are too powerful, too elemental, to both contain and feed at the same time. You will soon be subsisting from day to day on the minutes you can snatch with her. Oh God, help us—you already are, aren’t you? I can see it in your face!”

John watched the struggle inside his friend, understood the wrenching depth of the sacrifice he needed to make. It happened to so many men, and it never was easy.

In the end, “I will do this,” said William simply. “I will give up both of you. I have made particular friendships, and it is not my right to do so. But… look, I’m speaking to you now as my abbot: I want you to know—for no one else will know it, I shall not let them see—for the rest of my life, I shall keep John and I shall keep Madeleine in a shining memory of summer in my heart. I can let the relationships go, the day-to-day delight of friendship that has so sweetened my life, because I want to stay here. But before God, I cannot let her go—or you go—from my heart. You will be sewn into the beating of my heart with invisible thread, both of you. I promise you though, I swear it, nobody will see. I have lied all my life. I can lie about this. Will that do? Ah, merciful Jesu, Father! Don’t look at me like that! Will you have me in tears? I can do no more!”

“William, let it settle. I am still here, and yes, there are bonds between us that shall not be forgotten or denied. Madeleine is here. And because of your initiative she is safe and not shut inside a convent where she does not belong. Being in love—it subsides; no, trust me, it does! You will not always feel as wretched as you are feeling this minute. And you will always be the man who helped her live again. She knows you are a monk. She will understand. She might feel hurt at first when you do not come to her, but that of itself will create a cooling space most necessary. Brother, our Father Peregrine said to Brother Thomas one time that love has no defenses, that you only know it’s love when it hurts. I think about that sometimes. If we make the choice to stay alive—vital and tender and open—we’ve chosen something that is precious and therefore costly. If I’ve understood it rightly, what Christ asks of us is to accept the pain of being open. That’s the picture of the cross—the pain of being open.”

“It’s a rhythm, isn’t it?” said William slowly. “Crucifixion… burial… resurrection… ascension. You think you’re through, you rejoice that it’s done, and then before you know it, it starts again with a fresh crucifixion. Oh holy Jesus, I don’t know that I have the strength for this.”

“It is painful, but it doesn’t rot you from the inside, like living for yourself and for material things and being shut away. It asks a great deal, but your brothers understand. Brother Tom, for instance—he has been in love. He was out of the community for quite some time, but he came back; he chose what he really wanted. Take the treasure that is in you and give it to the people who don’t have any—Father Chad, Father Gilbert, the novices who are so unsure of themselves and desperate for affirmation, the merchants and traders who notice how coming here makes them feel.”

William took these ideas in, considering what had been said to him, his face thoughtful. Then he seemed to come to a resolution; and when he spoke, his voice sounded wooden—the flat tone of resignation. “I’m taking up your time.”

“If you love me, pray for me; and I will pray for you,” said John gently, “for I love you too.”

William nodded and got to his feet. “I’d best go and get the cords and the salt sorted out,” he said.

John also stood, and they crossed the room to the door that led out to the cloister. William hesitated then and looked at his abbot. “She’s… she’s scared of big spiders,” he said.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” John stared at him in exasperation. “You are not to go near her! Anyway, I know about the spiders. She’s my sister. But she’s forty-three; that’s grownup enough to come to terms with spiders.”

William opened the door, but with his hand on the latch he looked back. “May I just—”

“Absolutely not,” said John. “Leave her alone. Get on with the work you are supposed to be doing.”

Nothing in his abbot’s demeanour let William know that it broke John’s heart to see the look on his friend’s face as he nodded one more time and turned to go.

As the days expanded into high summer, England stood green beneath her canopy of trees. In Madeleine’s garden, the sound of contented hens against the drowsy hum of bees told the season, with the fragrance of the flowers.

A steady trickle of visitors began to find their way to Peartree Cottage as word quickly reached the village that she was a wisewoman skilled in herbal lore and practice, and an experienced midwife too. One or two women in the village were with child, and the walk up to the abbey was steep but not very far. Brother Michael respected Madeleine’s knowledge and experience, and working alongside him she was able to contribute much of value to the medical help St Alcuin’s could offer the folk round about. Under the shelter of the abbey’s good name and intrinsic holiness, Madeleine found herself able to interact freely and with confidence; she started to make friends. John came when he could spare an hour to spend in her company and invited her often to eat at his table and meet those who came and went.

Oswald learned the way to her house and frequently went to see her. Brother Michael visited from time to time to seek her advice.

The brothers saw that she lacked nothing. She had the eggs from her hens and the herbs from her garden, and Brother Ambrose brought her flour and oil, candles and spices, needles and thread, a spindle for the wool she collected from the hedgerows, and everything she needed.

She loved her cottage and lived contentedly there, but she commented with elaborate carelessness to her brother one June day, “It’s odd, I never see William anymore.”

“A goat? Oh, God bless him!” Madeleine exclaimed, delighted. “I miss him though,” she persisted tentatively.

“Yes, I understand. We keep him busy with his cellarer’s duties, Madeleine. When we travelled together to Chesterfield, I think they felt his absence more sorely here than mine! His responsibilities are both broad and detailed; they leave him little leisure. No doubt your paths will cross from time to time.”

Familiar with the nuances of John’s voice, Madeleine knew she was hearing something that rang not quite true. She looked at him, puzzled. Very straight, he met her eyes. “Leave it, please, sister,” he said. And then she understood.

In the checker each day, William worked diligently alongside Brother Ambrose. “I don’t know how we ever got on without him,” that brother remarked to his abbot one evening in late June as he fell into step with him on the way to Vespers. “For a week or two after you came back from Chesterfield, I hardly saw him, and I thought he was going to turn out to have been another nine days’ wonder like Brother Bernard was when Father Peregrine tried him on the job—such promise but coming to nothing in the end. It takes stamina to keep at the cellarer’s duties. Still, I expect Father William was busy helping Father Oswald find his way about that week or two, poor soul.”

“I expect that must have been it,” his abbot replied. “I’m pleased to hear he’s settled back in again now.”

As June turned into July, John asked William to bring the last month’s accounts to the abbot’s lodge to be approved and signed.

Finding his abbot seated at his great oak table, William handed him the bundle of prepared accounts. They had seen little of each other in the weeks since William had undertaken to sever all communication with Madeleine and to allow greater space between himself and his abbot. They saw each other in the daily round of worship, of course, and their paths crossed often enough as they each went about their business in the abbey. But the intimacy that had grown between them had been left on ice.

As William came into the room now, John appraised him carefully: the narrow, sallow, mobile face, with the silver hair and eyes the indeterminate cold colour of the ocean—eyes whose colour it was hard to remember and, like the sea, showing only the shifting surface, all manner of life without explanation continuing unobserved underneath. William’s manner was pleasant and courteous. He gave no signal of special relationship; nothing in his glance or his demeanour suggested intimacy or friendship beyond their formal relationship in community. This man was hard to read.

Abbot John went through the accounts while William stood quietly waiting. He checked everything carefully, signing his name to each section and to all the letters ready for sending.

“Well?” As he pushed the bulky pile of parchments, duly examined and authorized, across the table, he looked into his friend’s eyes with gentle concern. He probed with healer’s sight, gazing directly into William’s eyes, searching his soul, and saw… nothing. William’s soul was not available for inspection. “Your head’s in good form. How’s your heart?”

Relaxing his guard somewhat, William shook his head, looking all of his fifty years. “I don’t know that you should ask or that I should tell you,” he said at last. He glanced at John and away again. “Sometimes when I have lain awake in the hot dark these summer nights, I have pressed my mouth to my own hand, pretending it was her I kissed. Sometimes as I could not sleep, I have wrapped my own arms around myself, pretending she held me close. I will spare you the graphic details of anything else I may have done. But I promise you I have never gone near her—not once, Father.”

He picked up the bundle of documents and held them with both arms against himself as though they afforded some kind of protection. “Will that be all, Father?” His voice carefully neutral and light, he stood poised to go, waiting to be dismissed.

John’s eyes met his. ‘“William—” William raised one eyebrow, questioning, and John saw there was nothing to be said. William was doing what had been asked of him; overmuch probing would hardly be fair. “No, it’s all right,” he said. “Thank you. I honour you, and I appreciate what you are doing. God bless you.”

Indefinably, William’s face softened. He bent his head in a respectful salute and left as quietly and unobtrusively as he had come.

The sun shone bright and pouring hot on this July day with no wind as Abbot John crossed the court from the claustral buildings to the checker. He found a scene of quiet industry in the small stone building, its windows and doors open to let in any slight breeze. Brother Ambrose sat at one table spread with ledgers, perusing letters. William sat at another, behind piles of accounts, with a pen in his hand.

“How’s it going?” John’s tone was pleasantly friendly, the question apparently a general inquiry about the organizational affairs of the abbey.

“We are making good progress, thank you, Father John,” beamed Brother Ambrose cheerfully. “It’s always quite a busy time once we come fully into the shearing and the harvests: hiring and buying to be thought of, as well as selling. But we seem to be on top of all that’s coming in and going out. Father William has cooled off from his initial whirlwind pace, for which I’m mighty grateful! I couldn’t keep up with the speed of him at first; but ever since you had that trip away, he seems to have calmed down. He jogs along like any brother now. I think I’ve been a steadying influence on him.”

The subject of this conversation did not reply but sat, the pen grasped loosely in his hand, his pale eyes watching their exchange without animation, his face betraying nothing as he listened.

Abbot John went to stand near him and looked over William’s shoulder at the orderly sheets of accounts spread in front of him. On top of them lay a torn sheet of vellum, the ink of the words written on it still wet. It had been rejected from the scriptorium because too much erasing had worn a hole. Then it had been torn in two and torn in two again for other uses. On the small battered sheet that remained of the original, words newly scribed were quickly drying in the heat. John leaned over William’s shoulder, silently reading it through twice… and again. William made no objection and sat quietly as John took the words in.

When we come plummeting down
Falling… falling…
When we lie hidden in the earth
Lost from sight
When we find the strength to lift up
When we ascend again toward the blue
When we rise up singing
And find our way to the sun
Then come tumbling down again
In freefall losing everything we gained
Our Lady of the Skylarks
Please pray for us.

“Yes. Some things cost more than we could ever have imagined,” Abbot John said, his voice serious and sad, “but I think it will be worth it in the end.”