More rains came that evening—the fourth night since anyone had seen the Shadow. Of course, two of those nights had been rainy ones, and no one had ever claimed to see the shadowy figure in a rainstorm. That could be either because of the deep darkness of the storm or, more likely, because the Shadow truly was a monk who had no reason to walk outdoors in the pouring rain.
Friday morning brought a clear sky and a frigid breeze. In a month it would be winter.
Xan pulled a long-sleeved, woolen shirt over his tunic. It had been provided by the nuns yesterday, who had delivered to the abbey several bundles of clothes and linens: extra blankets for the night and brown, thick shirts for the day.
Brother Oscar made all the boys stand beside their beds, as usual, as he led them in the Lord’s Prayer. Though Xan had not known the words of the prayer on the first few days of this ritual, he had memorized them by now, beginning with “Our Father, which art in Heaven.”
While he prayed, he held the abbot’s whittled cross in his palm. As he repeated the words, “deliver us from evil, amen,” a familiar feeling settled upon him.
He’d stood and prayed like this before, in his prior life at Hardonbury.
There was no flash of light in his mind this time, no stunning vision, only the misty image of a man and woman on either side, holding his hands. Their faces became clearer: Mother and Father, lips moving in prayer. Mother had her eyes closed, her rosy cheeks still and peaceful.
His heart sank. He would never know what that felt like, praying with his family. He’d lost that chance forever now. But this new memory—if that’s what this was—proved his parents had taught him to pray, though he might not be able to recall any specific prayers.
“Now, boys, take a moment of silence to offer your day to our Lord,” Brother Oscar said.
Xan squeezed the little cross. Help me remember them, Lord. Help me solve their mystery.
When prayers had ended, the boys breakfasted in the refectory, where Brother Oscar assigned them chores. He told Xan, Morris, and several other boys to work with the lay brothers in the granges, helping with the harvest. He told Joshua to sweep the abbey church.
“Not again,” poor Joshua said, real tears welling in his eyes.
“Don’t worry,” Xan said to the boy. “We can meet up later this afternoon and have races.”
As Xan exited the wide hall, John passed by him, bumping him with a rude shoulder that caused him to fall against the doorpost.
“Watch where you’re going, clumsy,” John said, heading to clean the stables.
Xan just shook his head and traveled to the granges, where he spent the morning with the other harvesting boys. They lunched with the lay brothers at midday, sitting on the wheat-covered soil as they ate their bread and green-topped carrots before being released from their labors.
Yesterday, Brother Andrew had told Xan to find him in the scriptorium after his chores were completed. The monk intended to teach him lessons each day between the morning chores and nones, the monks’ mid-afternoon prayers.
Xan found Brother Andrew and soon sat with him at the library table. But before his daily lesson began, he told the monk about Father Paul’s parchment and Godfrey’s wax seal.
“Indeed, that is strange,” Brother Andrew agreed. “Perhaps you can ask Roger when he arrives. Maybe he has seen this Rummy at Chadwick.”
“Sire Roger is coming here today?”
“Aye. We received a messenger early this morning who said to expect him ere nones.”
What might be bringing Sire Roger here today, so soon after Xan’s visit to Chadwick’s sanctuary area on Monday?
The monk lifted Xan’s school parchment up to the candlelight and reviewed the various sounds of the letter g. Over the next hour, he did the same for every letter and then wrote two letters next to each other, showing Xan how they could combine to make new sounds.
A bell rang in the abbey church.
“That must be Roger,” Brother Andrew said, setting the parchment aside. “Come.”
He led Xan to the chapter house again, where it seemed all the most important meetings took place at the abbey. Sure enough, when they knocked and entered, the prior and Brother Leo were sitting across from Sire Roger, sipping water from wooden cups and talking about the rains.
The edges of Roger’s mustache had dipped into his cup so that water was dripping from it onto the nobleman’s lap, while he squinted and wiped droplets from his deep-blue shirt.
“Ah, that poor peasant boy,” Sire Roger said, when he glanced up and saw Xan.
Xan gave half a bow. “Good afternoon, sire.”
“What is he doing here?” Brother Leo said, pointing at Xan.
“The boy has found another clue, Leo,” Brother Andrew said, patting Xan’s shoulder. “Go ahead and tell them, my son.”
Xan explained about Father Paul’s attack, scar-faced Rummy, and the wax-sealed parchment. As he spoke, Sire Roger’s face went from interest to surprise to shock.
“I cannot imagine how such a document could have come into the hands of a bandit,” Roger said. “Lord Godfrey and all of us on his high staff use that wax seal for official letters, contracts, and even proclamations. If this Rummy is the same bandit who attacked Hardonbury, as you say, then perhaps he found the parchment in the manor house ere he burnt it down.”
That made sense. Lord Godfrey must have had regular contact with the lord of Hardonbury because, after the fire, he’d abandoned his claims on the manor and transferred it to Godfrey.
“Actually, this boy’s news relates to the purpose of my visit,” Sire Roger said, slicking back a strand of brown hair behind his left ear. “I come with a message from Lord Godfrey.”
The prior looked to Brother Leo and Brother Andrew. “Shall we fetch the abbot?”
Sire Roger held up a hand. “Not necessary. Perhaps this is a message best heard by you, Prior, and then passed on to your dear abbot after some reflection.”
Xan kept his eye on Roger, who seemed tense. Maybe this had to do with Penwood Manor. That would explain why he wouldn’t want the abbot around, at least based on how the previous angry meeting at the chapter house had gone.
“My lord is concerned—indeed, quite worried—about the safety of your dear abbey and its two manors. He knows how vulnerable you all are to the whims of evil men, such as these bandits, and he seeks to extend a warm hand of friendship to you monks.”
Brother Leo was nodding, but the prior’s gray-bearded cheeks were like stone.
“And what would Lord Godfrey like to do for us?” Brother Andrew asked.
“He sends me to see about negotiating terms so that he can protect this abbey and its two manors—especially Penwood Manor.”
Sire Roger paused to drink from his cup, his narrow eyes flitting between Brother Leo and the prior as he sipped. He seemed interested in how the two monks were interacting.
“We should find out more about this offer,” Brother Leo said. “The danger here has—”
The prior glared at the monk. “For the love of Eve, we are aware of your opinions on this matter, Leo. But I think Lord Godfrey would expect us to recognize his claim on Penwood Manor as part of this negotiation. Is that not so, Sire Roger?”
Sire Roger placed his cup back on the wooden table and wiped his mustache. “That is so.”
Perhaps the monks should consider negotiating, as Brother Leo suggested. These bandits were evil. If the abbot didn’t find a way to protect the abbey’s manors, Penwood could burn to the ground, and more peasants might die, like Mother and Father.
And more boys might be orphaned, like Xan.
“’Tis not my place to make such negotiations,” the prior said. “And our abbot is unlikely to be interested in such a discussion, as you well know.”
“Do not answer too hastily, Prior,” Roger said. He gestured toward Brother Leo. “Talk about it with your wiser monks. Perhaps the abbot would listen if you all spoke with one voice.”
The prior stood. “I will think on it, as you say. Now, I thank you for your visit, but the time for nones has arrived. Our Lord calls us to gather in the abbey church for our prayers.”
“Oh my—give up Penwood Manor?” Lucy said. She and Maud sat on the edge of the fountain in the ring of bushes, next to Xan and Joshua. “If Lord Godfrey cares about our safety as much as he says, he shouldn’t force the abbot to do that.”
“Yeah,” Maud chimed in, bunching up her eyebrows. “That’s not very nice.”
The two girls had wandered up the convent path late in the afternoon, with a pair of older nuns eyeing them from a distance. The boys of the dorm had just finished a game of blindman’s buff, where they’d taken turns blindfolding each other and making the “blind man” tag someone.
Thankfully, John was still off with David, searching for toads near the woodland stream.
“Sire Roger didn’t know anything at all about Rummy,” Xan said. “That probably means the bandits don’t live in Chadwick. As bailiff, Roger knows everything that goes on at that manor.”
Finding a link between Chadwick and the bandits had seemed a major clue yesterday, but now it felt like he wasn’t a single step closer to learning why those bandits had killed his parents. If Rummy had stolen the parchment from Hardonbury’s manor house—the most likely situation—then the parchment meant nothing at all as a clue.
Xan sighed. “Maybe I’m not supposed to solve this mystery, after all.”
“But you’re the smartest boy at the abbey,” Joshua said. “That’s why you’re being taught.”
Lucy smiled. “You’re smart too, Joshua.”
“So am I,” said Maud.
The water in the fountain flowed peacefully around the striped fish.
“I like this place,” Lucy said, turning her head westward. “It lifts up my soul.”
Xan gazed in the same direction her eyes had focused. An autumn rainbow of red, yellow, and orange leaves dotted the woodland behind the granges.
“Do you think, if I asked God for the answer, that He’d give it to me?” he asked her.
Lucy seemed in tune with God and faith and prayer. He, on the other hand, had just started learning the right words and begun muttering to God under his breath now and again.
She giggled at him. “Of course He would.” Then her lips pursed together seriously. “But, like Sister Regina always says, you might not get the answer you want, or when you want it.”
A stone flew through the air and splashed in the water, soaking Xan’s face.
“Look! ’Tis Sire Clumsy and his lady, the fair Frog Face!” John’s voice rang from a bush.
“Give her a big kiss, Xan.” That was David.
Lucy’s cheeks turned red.
“Leave us alone!” yelled Maud at the same time that Joshua shouted, “Go away!”
John and David’s snickering faded as they headed toward the boys’ dorm.
Lucy smirked. “That John of yours is almost as bad as Silvia back at the convent.”
Maud stood on the ledge with hands on her hips. “Yeah, she’s always bossing everyone.”
“Once, she almost scratched another girl’s eyes out,” Lucy said. “Sister Cecilia had to pull her off the poor girl, like she was a rabid dog.”
“She does sound a lot like John,” Xan said with a laugh.
“You haven’t been fighting with him again, have you?” Lucy said.
He frowned. “When he goes right, I go left; if he looks one way, I look the other. And every time he walks by, he mumbles something—I don’t know what.”
“He wouldn’t dare start a tussle with that Brother Oscar around,” she said.
“Well, you see he’s got David turned against me now, too.”
“Ignore them.”
Lucy might be right. But ignoring wouldn’t work if John was going to throw stones and shove him into doors. Eventually they’d have to finish their fight.
The way he’d tripped John’s feet the other day during that scuffle, it was as if he’d known exactly what to do. Maybe he’d been in a lot of fights while growing up in Hardonbury. And if that were the case, then his home might not have been all that different than here at the abbey.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “From now on, all my free time will be spent alone, studying words in the library and trying to figure out this mystery.”
Lucy gazed at him. “You’re not alone, Xan. You’ve got God. And I’ll help you.”
“Me too!” said Maud and Joshua at the same time.