Had it all been a dream? The screams, the Shadow, the monks, the bandits, Lord Godfrey: were they all part of a nightmare that wouldn’t end?
He opened his eyes. He lay in the infirmary upon a straw mattress again.
Nay, not a dream. It all had happened. Mother and Father were dead.
I am Stephen, son of Nicholas.
He was nothing but a poor serf who’d spent his life working with Father in the fields of Hardonbury Manor, much like the servants who labored at Harwood Abbey. Of course, he’d had friends in the village, but no other family. Before he was born, his parents had lost his brother and sister to a plague. And though Father had spoken of an uncle in a far-off town, that man hadn’t come back to Hardonbury since he’d been a child. Perhaps the uncle was dead, like everyone else.
He was all alone in the world.
“Look, he wakes.” The soft voice near his bedside belonged to Brother Andrew, the one who had become like a second father, giving him a new identity and a name: Alexander—Xan.
“Welcome back, child,” the prior said, stepping to the bed with relief in his eyes.
“You took a nasty fall,” Brother Andrew said. “By Adam, you gave me a dreadful fright.”
Of course. The bandits had attacked. Lord Godfrey and his men had arrived just in time.
“What happened to those horrid bandits? Rummy and that Carlo—did the guards kill him?”
The prior shook his head. “Carlo dwells in our confinement cell, with two of his accomplices. Unfortunately, I think the one you call Rummy must have escaped.”
“That’s a shame,” Xan said. “They all deserve to die.”
The prior gave a disappointed look. “’Tis not good for you to speak so freely about the killing of human life, boy. Our Lord died for men such as that.”
Except the prior hadn’t lost his mother to men such as that. Maybe then he’d understand.
“What about the abbot?” Xan said, changing the topic. “Lucy and Lord Godfrey?”
“All are safe, son, thanks to you,” Brother Andrew said. “Alas, three of Lord Godfrey’s men were killed in the battle, and most of the bandits perished, except for a few who fled.”
So, Lord Godfrey had come and saved the abbey, and his men had paid the ultimate price.
“I guess the lord will get Penwood Manor after all. Now that he protects the abbey, I mean.”
Brother Andrew grinned. “Quite the opposite. The lord is ashamed his bailiff caused such tragedy to us. Indeed, yesterday he gave up all claim to Penwood to atone for Sire Roger’s sins.”
“Yesterday?”
“Aye, son. You have slept a full day away. We were starting to worry again.”
Xan yawned wide and sat up in the bed. “I know who I am,” he said in a whisper.
The two monks exchanged concerned glances. “You can remember again?” the prior asked, his face drawn up in an anxious frown.
He nodded. “All the memories hit me at once, just like the monk at your old abbey.”
“Very good, child,” the prior said. “The abbot will be cheered by this news.”
“Wait—what about Brother Leo? We have to get him out of jail!”
“’Tis done already,” assured Brother Andrew. “And the abbot has confirmed what you have already told us: Brother Leo was innocent this entire time.”
How close they’d come to hanging that poor monk for a crime he’d never committed. The only offense he’d done was being grumpy and walking around the abbey at odd hours with his cowl over his head, terrifying little boys who mistook him for the angel of death.
“There’s one thing I still don’t understand, Brother. Why was Brother Leo always wandering about like that at night? ’Twas so creepy and suspicious.”
Brother Andrew looked to the prior, who gave him a nod. “You may tell him.”
“It seems,” Brother Andrew said, “that the abbot gave special permission to Brother Leo to engage in . . . well, to discipline himself with a whipping rod upon his own back.”
That sounded terrible! The old monk had talked several times about beating his body to make it his slave, but that had always sounded like a mere expression.
Brother Andrew was still explaining. “That is why Brother Leo went to distant areas, where no one would hear him cry out. And that is why you boys saw him sneaking about at odd hours.”
“And that’s probably why he was limping in pain. But why hurt himself like that, Brother?”
“’Tis a dangerous form of penance to share Christ’s sufferings,” the prior said. “He wished to keep it a secret. That kind of self-punishment requires special permission from the abbot. Indeed, Leo did have his approval, but I did not know about that ’til the abbot awoke yesterday.”
Xan lay back, already exhausted from the brief conversation.
A woman’s melody rang in from the hallway. “Praise God! See who’s awake, Lucy!” Sister Regina and Lucy entered the room, escorted by Brother Lucius. The nun greeted the monks and squeezed the boy’s hand. “We have all been praying for you.”
Lucy folded her arms and put on a pretend pout. “You’re always causing people to worry. Why must you fall down all the time?”
Sister Regina’s gentle laugh at Lucy’s joke sounded a lot like Mother. She too had been kind and loving, humming songs at night while he went to sleep. Father had especially loved those songs.
But Xan—Stephen—would never hear either of their dear voices again now, thanks to Sire Roger and Rummy and the leader of that evil group of bandits, Carlo.
The abbot trudged in front of them into the confinement building, a cane in one hand and a monk’s supporting arm in the other. Each step caused a grunt of pain from the injured monk.
“Now you watch and listen, child,” the abbot said, turning toward him. “Listen with your whole heart and soul. This may bring you healing; help you see the value in every human life.”
But how could watching the abbot speak to that evil man bring healing? The only place he wanted to see Carlo was at the end of the hangman’s noose, if they allowed boys to watch.
Hopefully Lord Godfrey and the royal courts would take care of that soon enough.
Brother Andrew had insisted that they walk together behind the abbot and watch the old monk speak to the man who had attacked him and almost killed him.
Carlo apparently had been talking freely to Lord Godfrey’s guards, who now kept watch over the captured bandits in the abbey’s confinement cells. According to Brother Andrew, the bandit had been without remorse for his crimes. Indeed, the only sorrow he seemed to feel was for the injury to his shoulder, inflicted by Godfrey’s men when they’d transported him to the cell.
He’d told the guards all they’d wanted to know, seeing no reason to hide the truth. He’d confessed that he had been hired by Sire Roger to cause havoc in the countryside. That had been no problem for him and his bandits. Not only were they permitted to take whatever they found, but the bailiff had paid them handsomely for their services.
He’d attacked Hardonbury. Then he’d assailed Penwood and the abbey. When that hadn’t satisfied Sire Roger, Carlo had disguised himself in the robe of a monk to inflict a beating on the stubborn old abbot so the abbey would have no choice but to seek Lord Godfrey’s protection.
Yet Sire Roger now rotted in Lord Godfrey’s dungeon, and Carlo was caged like an animal, while the abbot walked free and the abbey was given undisputed ownership of Penwood Manor. God truly could bring good out of evil, just as Sister Regina had said.
The abbey’s confinement area was tiny and dank, with three rooms, each containing a jail cell. The other two captured bandits had been separated from Carlo and kept in different cells.
As the abbot entered the room that held Carlo, Brother Andrew put his hand out. “Stay with me here, my son,” he said. “We can see and hear all that we need without getting too close.”
Once, back in Hardonbury, Father had stopped him from going into the shed because of a serpent. “Stay here, Stephen,” Father had said. “Do not get too close to that perilous creature.”
Carlo was like a serpent, too—a poisonous one.
A guard met the monk at the doorway. “You are walking again already, abbot?”
The abbot began a chuckle that ended in a cough. “I just thank God to be alive, friend.” He plodded toward the cell that contained Carlo, then sat in a small chair there. He made the Sign of the Cross with his thick, muscular hands.
Carlo seemed provoked by the mere presence of the holy monk. “Why come here to torment me, old man? I suppose you want to gloat.”
“You are the one who attacked me?” the abbot asked, his weak voice barely a whisper.
The bandit smiled thinly. “They told you about me, eh?”
The abbot said nothing as he watched Carlo, but the bandit couldn’t bear his gaze for long. He soon turned his eyes to the ground, which was a good thing—the villain didn’t deserve to look into the face of a good man like the abbot.
“Do not worry, Abbot. I shall be hanged for my crimes. You soon will be satisfied.”
The abbot shook his head. “There will be no satisfaction in your death.”
Perhaps the abbot wouldn’t be happy when the bandit was executed, but others would. The entire village of Hardonbury would probably line up and take turns walking all over his grave.
Carlo laughed aloud. “Come now, old man. We both know you will spit on my tomb.”
“Nay. Indeed, I have spoken to Lord Godfrey on your behalf. You will not be executed.”
“What?”
The abbot must be jesting. How could he intervene on behalf of a vile man who had wanted to kill him, who had burned the abbey, who had even murdered women and children?! Mother and Father were in their graves because of him.
“God gave you life,” the abbot said. “Only God shall take it from you.”
Carlo seemed dazed. “But the penalty for my crimes is death. Others will demand it.”
“They shall respect my wishes. You will not be executed,” the abbot repeated.
Brother Andrew’s face had stayed expressionless through this part of the conversation. Had he known what the abbot had done? Surely he couldn’t approve of this, allowing a killer to live.
“I will not be hung?” Carlo muttered to himself. Then he grinned, as though he’d figured out the true motive behind the abbot’s actions. “I see, old man. You wish me to suffer in a dungeon the rest of my days. That would be a fate worse than death, eh?”
“Nay, that is not what I desire. I wish to forgive you for your sin against me.”
The abbot reached his hand through the bars, as if to touch Carlo’s shoulder. That seemed dangerous. A man like Carlo, with nothing to lose, might grab his arm and break it to pieces.
But Carlo didn’t grab the abbot’s arm. Instead, he stepped back and turned his head away. “I did not ask for your forgiveness. Nor do I need it.”
The abbot waited. “Perhaps so,” he said finally. “But I need to forgive you. Our Lord forgave those who crucified him, and He has forgiven my own selfish sins. So now I forgive you.”
Carlo remained silent.
Why would God want to forgive someone who had done so much evil? Carlo was exactly the kind of person who deserved to be punished forever, wasn’t he? In Hardonbury, there used to live a bullying boy named Thomas, who’d punched Xan in the mouth once for no good reason. When Thomas’s parents found out, they’d beat him with a plank twenty times. Surely all the crimes Carlo had committed deserved much more punishment and much less forgiveness.
When Carlo spoke next, his voice sounded sad. “There is no forgiveness for me. Go away.”
The abbot regarded Carlo for a long moment, as though examining his soul through the bandit’s black eyes. Whatever he saw, he didn’t talk about it.
“As you wish,” the abbot said, rising feebly from the chair.
That whole conversation had been odd. If Brother Leo had been here, he would probably have pointed his stubby finger in the bandit’s face and doomed him to hell.
“Come,” Brother Andrew said, tugging at his tunic sleeve.
But as the abbot reached the doorway, the bandit stirred.
“Wait!” Carlo called. His proud head was hung low; his defiant posture had vanished; the angry fire in his eyes had faded. He looked beaten on the inside.
The abbot gave a nod to the bandit and shuffled back over to the bars of his cell.
“I was not always as you see me now,” Carlo said in a softer tone. “I took up the cross and fought in Bernard’s Crusade when I was a young man—a dreamer—journeying back to England after visiting relatives in Sicily. As I traveled through France, I heard Bernard of Clairvaux preaching his crusade. I was much taken by him, so I followed.”
Just like Lord Godfrey’s father and Sire Roger’s father, Carlo too had been a crusader. Carlo must have felt like a real devil when he’d heard Lord Godfrey’s men shouting out the crusader’s war cry as he was about to kill an innocent boy.
The abbot again reached through the bars. “’Tis not too late for you.”
This time, Carlo didn’t pull back. “What must I do?”
“Be sorry for your sins, confess them, and receive God’s forgiveness,” the abbot said. “Then go and sin no more.”
Carlo remained still, his chin dropped to his chest.
“I am a priest,” the abbot said. “I will hear you in Confession, if you wish. With that sacrament will come healing.”
Brother Andrew pulled him to the front door. “We must go now, my son,” he said firmly, leaving no room for discussion. In a moment, they were blinking back in the sunlight.
“The abbot is going to forgive him, Brother?” he said. “Give him Confession? You mean, Carlo might get into Heaven one day, even after all the evil he’s done?”
Brother Andrew shrugged. “’Tis a mystery, son. The abbot is a holy man, and our Lord wants us to forgive. All of us have sinned and deserve eternal death, yet He came to offer us life.”
Xan stepped away from the monk. “He killed my parents. How can anyone forgive him for that? ’Tis impossible.”
Brother Andrew put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “With God, all things are possible. Pray, son. Pray and let God heal you. Give it time, and you will see.”
He shook his head. “That villain doesn’t deserve forgiveness. Not now.”
Maybe not ever.