He opened his eyes to sunlight streaming through the infirmary window. He was alone.
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. A constant hammering of wood upon stone sounded through the slit—workers threshing wheat in the distance.
“Wait,” he said aloud. “How do you know they’re threshing wheat, Alexander?” He said his new name again very slowly. “Al-ex-an-der.” Such a long name. What did it mean?
He pulled his hands out from under the warm scratchy blanket and looked at them in the chill light. There were callouses on his fingers and around the edges of his palms. He’d probably worked the fields and threshed wheat back in Hardonbury.
His parents could tell him when they came for him. The sooner they found him, the sooner he could stop being a burden to Brother Andrew. Then the monk could get back to his praying.
His stomach rumbled. “Time to get up, Alexander,” he said.
A clean brown tunic lay folded on the stool. Next to it was a white rope and a leather pouch.
He kicked off his blankets and sat up. Ouch! He needed to go slower than that to stop the pain from clobbering his head. He gingerly swung his feet over the bed into warm, morning light.
Taking tentative steps, he reached for the tunic and inched it over his head, careful not to disturb the bandages. Then he tied the rope and pouch around his waist. The monks also had left him leather shoes under the bed. He slipped them on, steadied himself, and headed for the door.
He collided with a coarse black robe.
“Trying to walk about alone, you foolish child? You are scarcely healed.”
The hard eyes of an elderly monk stared down at him, gray eyebrows sticking out from his forehead in unexpected ways. The man seemed familiar, yet certainly he hadn’t visited the infirmary last night. The monk pointed a thick, purply finger in the boy’s face.
“Were you not told you are forbidden to walk alone in the monks’ dormitory?”
Why was this monk so angry? The others had been so nice. “I was just—I wanted—I . . .”
“Speak quickly, child.” The monk’s ancient face could not tame the fire burning in his eyes. He resembled the others: a tonsured ring of silver hair, a flowing black robe and cowl, and a sleeveless vest worn over top. Except the other monks had been patient and gentle.
“I . . . I’m hungry.”
“And I am Brother Leo.” The monk stepped out of the room.
He didn’t move. What did the man expect him to do?
Brother Leo glared back at him. “By Peter’s staff, I do not have all day. Follow me, boy.”
He hurried behind the old mean monk, who led him past a small supply room and into a long hall with narrow wooden doors all shut tightly. Dark-colored paintings decked the walls. In one, a bright-eyed soldier with a broad sword and a cross in his belt marched toward a walled city—so joyful for war.
Brother Leo stopped abruptly and turned, pointing to one of the little doors.
“These hallways are forbidden to you, boy. These are the monks’ cells.”
That didn’t sound like a place any monk would want to be. “Prison cells?” he asked.
Brother Leo threw his thick hands into the air and huffed. He pressed down the handle on one of the doors. It glided open with a creaking sound. “What does this look like to you, child?”
Inside the empty room, a lonely bed with a thin straw mattress butted against a bare stone wall. A tiny desk and slender wood chair stood in the corner. On the far wall hung a wooden crucifix with the body of Jesus carved upon it. On the bed was a long, thin, wooden pole.
“It looks like a place to sleep.”
“This is my cell,” Brother Leo said, not quite meanly. “In some abbeys, the monks sleep in rows of beds in a common room. Not here. We rest and pray in our own cells.”
He pulled the door closed with an echoing slam and kept walking.
All that slamming and reprimanding had brought a throb back to Alexander’s head, but he continued to follow the monk closely through the labyrinth of hallways until they reached a larger door. The monk opened it and they stepped outside into cooler air. Birds chirped all around. The blazing sun pierced through branches of a tall oak, inflaming his headache even more.
They strode along a cobblestone path, past a lofty stone building with ivy growing up its sides. Finally they passed under a tall door into a dining hall. Empty wooden tables and benches lined the floor, and paintings hung on high walls of stone. Small windows allowed the daylight to invade, but the spacious area was grayer and dimmer than the infirmary.
“Wait here in the refectory,” Brother Leo ordered, as he marched back outside.
He plopped down on one of the benches. What was he supposed to be waiting for? And what was a refectory?
Maybe someone would bring him more bread. Or his parents might have arrived and were coming to meet him here. Unless they’d abandoned him. Or worse.
The monks were not telling him everything—that was certain. It could not be an everyday occurrence for a boy to wake at an abbey with a serious head injury and no parents. Surely boys didn’t just stray into the woods and lose their memories. How had he banged his head?
For a moment, an image flashed into his mind. The woodland. Smoke. Something held him in its arms. A black robe. The angel of death? Nay, he hadn’t died. A monk then, carrying him to the abbey. But which monk? Unless it all had been a dream.
Someone started sweeping outside the refectory. Moments later, the door burst open.
A red-haired boy entered, as short and slim as the broom clenched between his dirty fingers. The child continued to sweep but finally spotted him sitting on the bench. The boy—eyes growing wide on his freckled face—glanced in both directions before creeping to the table.
“Is everything all right?” he asked the child.
“I’m Joshua.” The boy spoke in a low voice, as though he were doing something wrong.
It was nice finally to meet someone who wasn’t wearing a black robe. This must be one of the boys Brother Andrew had mentioned, who had come to the abbey after a plague.
“Hello, Joshua.” Maybe he should have introduced himself to the boy as Alexander. Or it might be better to wait until he learned his real name.
He must have spoken too loudly because Joshua glanced back at the door and then stuck a crusty finger to his thin chapped lips. “Did you see anything last night?”
“See anything? Like what?”
Joshua’s voice dropped to a whisper. “The Shadow.”
“See a shadow?”
“Aye, on the fields at night. ’Tis coming to take our souls.”
“Like the angel of death?”
Joshua dropped the broom to the floor. “So you did see it!”
He’d seen it all right—in his first and only memory before waking up here at this abbey. This poor little boy might have had a similar nightmare with no one there to comfort him.
“Everyone has bad dreams sometimes,” he said gently to Joshua, the way his own mother might have consoled him as a child.
The boy picked up the broom with a stomp. “Nay! Not a dream; it was real.”
Dreams could seem real. The angel of death that had haunted his own dream had felt real enough, but trying to explain all that to Joshua would probably insult the boy. It wasn’t his job to mother Joshua—he had his own family to find. But who else would help the poor child?
“How old are you?” he said.
Joshua’s eyes grew indignant. “I’m not a baby. I’m almost nine years old, and I’m not the only one who saw the Shadow. David and John have seen it, too, and they’re almost twelve.”
So maybe it wasn’t a dream then. Perhaps a misunderstanding?
“I believe you, Joshua. You’ve all seen this shadow, but has it taken anyone’s soul yet?”
Joshua’s eyes shot left and right, perhaps to ensure the Shadow wasn’t eavesdropping on their conversation. “Well, actually, on this one night when—”
The door to the refectory swung open; the startled child yelped.
Brother Andrew entered with a smile, followed by a tall, slim man with a bushy mustache that curled around the edges of his lips. The other man wore a brown tunic, much like his own, and carried a wooden tray holding a cup, a head of cabbage, and a black loaf of bread.
“Good dawning, Alexander,” the monk said. “I see you have met one of our fine lads.”
Joshua squeezed the broom and started sweeping again. “’Twas just working my chores, Brother.” The child scurried out the door.
The man with the brown tunic placed the tray on the table, bowed to Brother Andrew, and exited without a word. No black robe—that might mean the man wasn’t a monk and that other kinds of people also lived at the abbey.
“How are you feeling this morning, Alexander?” Brother Andrew asked.
Alexander put a hand on his bandages and winced. “I think I’m well enough to go find my parents.” He bit into the bread loaf, which crumbled around his lips.
Brother Andrew reached out and pulled on the bandages.
Ouch! Though the monk grasped them gently, each tug caused a sharp pain until the final bandage fell to the stone floor.
“There. How is that?” Brother Andrew said.
The pounding had already begun to lessen, as though his head was joyously celebrating its freedom from bondage. “A bit better, thank you.”
“Excellent.” Brother Andrew smiled. “Last night, while you slept, the abbey’s leech examined you and said your bandages could be removed today.”
Maybe the monk was playing a joke on him. Leeches were slimy little creatures that lived in rivers. How did he know that, anyhow? Perhaps he had seen one, or his parents had told him.
He smirked at the monk. “A leech really told you that, Brother?”
The monk’s laughter echoed through the high-ceilinged room. “Not an actual leech, my son. A ‘leech’ is a monk learned in herbs and medicine who uses leeches for healing.”
How odd.
He bit into the green cabbage, so moist that it squirted water on his tongue while he chewed.
“As for your parents,” the monk said, “I have no news to report. But I have spoken with the prior and the abbot about your situation, and we have come up with a plan.”
Five days without his parents coming could mean they didn’t want to find him for some reason. Unless they didn’t know about Harwood Abbey. “Is Hardonbury far? Can I go there?”
The monk shook his head. “Far, but not too far. Today, the plan is to get you settled and give your body a little longer to heal. Tomorrow, the abbot directs me to take you to Hardonbury.”
He frowned. Another day without knowing his parents or his real name.
“All right, Brother. If you think that is best.”
“Now tell me,” Brother Andrew said. “How do you like the name I have chosen for you?”
Alexander. Surely that wasn’t the name his parents would have given him, so long and difficult to say. Yet the monk had been delighted by it.
Brother Andrew must have sensed his doubts. “Your namesake is Alexander the Great, one of the great warriors of history. Over a thousand years ago, his father, King Philip of Macedon, conquered Greece and built an empire. While still a boy, Alexander showed courage, strength, and great wisdom. He was tutored by none other than Aristotle, the brilliant Greek philosopher.”
The monk must be quite a dreamer to give such a name to an injured boy who threshed wheat. Brother Andrew’s face lit up as though he’d fought alongside Alexander the Great himself.
“Alexander the Great led his army on a crusade that captured many lands. My son, you should have seen it—soldiers as strong and numerous as the sands of the Sahara. All feared them. And at only nineteen years, that boy ruled one of the greatest empires this world has ever known.”
The monk patted him on the shoulder. “That is why I chose the name Alexander. I sense there is more to you than meets the eye.”
The name had dignity—maybe too much dignity. Falling down in the forest and banging your head didn’t make someone worthy of such a name. Unless the monks knew he’d done something strong and courageous in the forest and were keeping secrets from him.
“Do you not like the name?” Brother Andrew’s expression sank in disappointment.
He shrugged. “’Tis a fine name, Brother. Except . . . ’tis so long to say.”
The monk smiled. “I can solve that. What if we called you Xan for short?” He pronounced the nickname as “Zan.”
Much shorter and simpler, even a bit mysterious. Xan—the boy with no name and no memory. The look on his face must have provided all the answer Brother Andrew needed.
The monk clapped his hands. “’Tis settled, then. Now rise and follow me, Xan. ’Tis time you met the other boys and moved into the dormitory.”
No doubt, some of the boys were older than Joshua. They’d probably make fun of him: a new boy with a made-up name and no memory. What would he have done back in Hardonbury if boys had made fun of him? He might have cussed or punched them. Or would he have run away?
Brother Andrew was still talking. “First, I will introduce you to the monk in charge of the boys. Since the plague, a few of our monks have taken turns each week watching over the dorm.”
“And whose turn is it this week?” Xan asked.
“Brother Leo.”
That was the mean old monk. Brother Leo would probably be sticking his fat finger into Xan’s face a lot, screaming at him to hurry up and do chores.
“Why do you make a face?” Brother Andrew said, staring at him. “Brother Leo is a good man.” The monk ushered Xan out the door. “Come now, Xan. You have slept half the day away, and there is something magnificent that you absolutely must see.”