CHAPTER TWO

Father Columba

When I was a girl, a bit younger than you (my mother began) I had someone to tell me stories, too. It wasn’t my mother who told me stories though, it was my great-grandmother, and her name was Melissa, like yours. Great-grandmother Melissa told me all sorts of stories, stories about my uncles and cousins, about my great-aunt Alice who was a painter and lived in a little stone cottage at Bell Busk in Yorkshire. Old Aunt Alice’s cottage was one of a row of terraced cottages, all the same except that Aunt Alice’s was painted in psychedelic colours.

Great-grandmother Melissa told me about my auntie’s duck that had four legs—and she took me to see it too. She told me about one of my far-off ancestors, who was found on the doorstep as a tiny baby, in a shopping bag. She told me about my cousin’s dog Russ, who bit off a carol-singer’s finger, and about my grandfather’s dog that had to be put down because it loved him so much it went out one night and killed twenty hens and piled them all up on his doorstep. She told me about how she and her sisters took it in turns to pierce each others’ ears with a needle and a cork, and socks stuffed in their mouths to stop them screaming, so that their mother wouldn’t find out what they’d done. All kinds of tales she told me, and all about our family. But the ones I liked best were about a monastery long ago. These stories had been handed down, grandmother to granddaughter, for seven hundred years. They came from a long ago great-uncle Edward, who lived to be nearly a hundred, and was a very wise old man.

At the end of his life, when his blue eyes were faded and his skin was wrinkled, and his hair reduced to white wisps about his bald head (although he had the bushiest of eyebrows and whiskers that grew down his nose), Uncle Edward would while away his days telling stories to his visitors. The one who had the stories from him was his great-niece—she was a Melissa too. This Melissa began handing down the stories, and they came down through the generations until my great-grandmother, in the evening of her life, as she came into the twilight, would sit with me and tell me that long ago Uncle Edward’s stories. And now I will tell them to you.

Great-uncle Edward was a monk, at the Benedictine abbey of St Alcuin, on the edge of the Yorkshire moors. He had been a wandering friar in the order of the blessed Francis of Assisi, and had spent his life roaming the countryside, preaching the gospel. But as time went by, and his sixtieth birthday came and went, he felt a need for a more settled life. So after forty years of preaching throughout the English shires, he entered the community of Benedictines at St Alcuin’s Abbey in Yorkshire, far away from his family home near Ely, but just as cold and windy. Great-uncle Edward (now Brother Edward) was made the infirmarian of the abbey—that is to say, he took care of the monks when they were ill—for in his wandering days with the Franciscan friars, he had picked up a wealth of healing lore. He was skilled in the use of tisanes and poultices, herbal salves and spiced wines and aromatic oils, and he could set a bone or repair a wound as well as any man. So he settled down at St Alcuin’s, and gave himself to the work of nursing the sick and caring for the old under the Rule of Life of St Benedict.

In the year 1303—Brother Edward’s sixty-sixth—when he had been four years at the abbey, the good old abbot of the monastery, Father Gregory of the Resurrection, died peacefully in his sleep with a smile on his face, overburdened with years and glad to enter into the peace of the blessed. The brothers were sorry to lose him, for he had ruled them gently, with kindness and authority, knowing how to mingle mercy with justice so as to get the best out of his flock and lead them in their life of work and prayer. The sorriest of all was Father Chad, the prior of the monastery, second-in-command under the abbot, upon whose shoulders now fell the burden of responsibility for the community until they had a new abbot. Father Chad was a shy, quiet man, a man of prayer, a man of few words—a gentle, retiring man. He was not a leader of men. He had no idea why he had been chosen to be prior and was horrified to find the greatness of the abbacy thrust upon him. With a small sigh of regret he left the snug prior’s cell, which was built against the warm chimney of the brothers’ community room, the warming room, and installed himself in the large, draughty apartment which was the abbot’s lodging. Day and night he prayed that God would send a new abbot soon, and day and night he prayed that they wouldn’t choose him.

It was the usual thing, when the abbot of the monastery died, for the brothers to elect from among their number the new lord abbot. The brothers of St Alcuin’s prayed hard, and the more senior of the brethren spent long hours in counsel; but though they prayed long and considered earnestly, they came reluctantly to the conclusion that there was no brother among them with the necessary qualities of leadership to follow in Father Gregory’s footsteps. So they appealed to the bishop to choose them a new superior from among the brothers of another monastery, and said they would abide by his choice and accept whomever he sent to rule over them.

Before too long, word came from the bishop that he would himself be presenting their new superior to them. Since he had to travel through their part of the world on his return home to Northumbria from a conference with the king in London, he would visit them on his way, bringing their new abbot with him. The abbey reverberated with excitement, all except for Father Chad, who dreaded playing host to both a bishop and an abbot.

Great-uncle Edward did his best to encourage him; ‘Put a brave face on it. Father Prior! Chin up, never say die. ’Tis only one night when all’s said and done, then you’ll be back to your cosy nook by the warming-room flues and leave this windy barn to the new man, God help him. The bishop gives you his name in that letter, does he?’

Father Chad looked at the letter from the bishop, not that he needed to. He had read and re-read it a dozen times this morning, and knew the contents of it near enough by heart now; but he ran his finger down the script to make sure.

‘Here. Father Columba, the sub-prior from St Peter’s near Ely. He says very little about him. We shall have to wait and see.’

‘Ely? I was born and bred on the fens near Ely. My nephew took the cowl at St Peter’s. I wonder… Columba, you say? Columba the dove. No. No, wouldn’t be him. No sane man would have named that lad after a dove!’

‘You’ll eat with us, Edward, when they come tonight?’ Father Chad tried to sound casually friendly, but Edward knew panic when he saw it.

‘I shall count myself honoured. I’ll go now and get my chores done early. There’s old Father Lucanus suffering with the pain in his shoulder and neck again. I must spend some time with him, give him a rub with aromatics. It eases the ache wonderfully.’ Brother Edward stood up slowly and strolled across the bare, comfortless room to the great oak door. He paused in the doorway and looked back. Father Chad still sat in the imposing carved chair, staring gloomily at the letter on the huge, heavy table before him.

‘Time and the hour outrun the longest day, Father Chad,’ said Brother Edward consolingly. ‘It’ll be over before you know it.’

He set off to the infirmary, well content with the prospect of being among the first to have a good look at the new abbot.

‘Columba.’ He tried out the sound of the name, thoughtfully. ‘Columba. Irishman, maybe? We shall see.’

When a man entered as a brother in the monastic life (my mother explained) he had done with the world and its ways and set out as though on a brand new life to try and live in every way, with a single heart, for God. He took three vows; one of poverty, that he would never have anything to call his own again; one of chastity, that he would never have a wife or a girlfriend, but all women would be like sisters to him, just as all men would be like brothers; and one of obedience, that he would submit to the authority of the abbot of the community, and obey his word in everything. When he made his first vows after six months as a novice, the monk would be clothed in the habit of the order, which was a long robe—black for the Benedictines—with a separate hood called a cowl, and wide sleeves and a leather belt.

To show that he really had finished with all the trappings of his old life, the monk was given a new name by his abbot, as if he were a brand new person. The abbot usually tried to pick something appropriate to the man’s character or background. Great-uncle Edward had been christened Edward as a baby, after King Edward the Confessor, who was a good and holy king. When he entered the religious life, his abbot said he should keep the same name, since no one could hope to be more devoted to the Lord Jesus than King Edward had been. And now the man the bishop was bringing was Columba, named after the Irish Saint. Columba, the dove, the bird that represents gentleness and kindness and simplicity, as well as being a symbol of the Holy Spirit of God.

After Vespers Brother Edward hurried with anticipation to the abbot’s lodging to meet their distinguished supper guests, who had ridden in an hour ago and been welcomed to the guest house.

‘Well, well!’ murmured Brother Edward, as his new abbot entered the room: for it was indeed the son of his sister Melissa, whom he had not seen for years.

‘Columba!’ Edward chuckled to himself. ‘Meek and gentle dove, eh? Well, I shall be very surprised…’

The new abbot, whom Edward had known since babyhood, was certainly no dove. His mother, dead now, had been a proud, noble lady, and his father was a rich and powerful Norman aristocrat with a face as proud as an eagle and a grip on all that was his as fierce as the grip of an eagle’s talons. When their child was born, he had a little beaky nose like a bird of prey, and a flashing dark eye quite startling in a pink baby face. His mother, laughing, called him Peregrine, and well named he was, for like a hawk he grew: fierce, proud and arrogant, with a piercing look and a hawk’s beak nose. Great-grandmother Melissa said I favoured him in my looks, even all these years later.

This Peregrine had two older brothers. The elder of the two, Geoffroi, took charge of the farming side of his father’s estate. Emmanuel, the second brother, went for a soldier. Peregrine, youngest, stubbornest, fiercest of the three, surprised them all by losing his proud, stubborn heart to Jesus, turning his back on the world and entering as a novice at St Peter’s Abbey near Ely, to try the monastic life as a Benedictine brother.

Of course, it’s one thing to love Jesus and quite another to follow him; and poverty, chastity and obedience sat about as comfortably on Peregrine as his hair shirt. Still, the brothers saw promise in him, and as much from stubbornness as anything else he grimly struggled through his novitiate year, finally making his vows and being professed as Brother Columba—a name which showed either that his abbot had a wry sense of humour or else that he had greater faith than most men and no sense of humour at all.

Peregrine was a good scholar and a devout monk, and he was ordained a priest, too. He was also a brilliant philosopher, and had inherited from his father a shrewd business mind and unmistakable qualities of leadership. He was not a popular man, because although he was just and upright and true, there was precious little compassion or gentleness about him. The fight to discipline himself, to attain all the spiritual and intellectual targets he set himself, occupied all his energies, leaving nothing to help him learn the gentler art of loving, much less of allowing himself to be loved. Still, he was valued for his abilities, even if he inspired little affection, and he was given several positions of responsibility.

When the bishop consulted the abbot of St Peter’s, to see if their community had anyone who could be sent to St Alcuin’s to serve as abbot, Father Columba had only recently been made sub-prior. The abbot of St Peter’s suggested him at once, and so Peregrine was sent, at the beginning of his forty-fifth year, as Lord Abbot to the monastery of St Alcuin in the north of Yorkshire. The bishop was satisfied that Peregrine would serve them well. He had listened to the advice of the abbot of St Peter’s, who knew the monks in his care better than they knew themselves:

‘He’s ruthless with himself, always has been. Drives the men under him hard too; but he’s fair-minded, unfailingly courteous and astute, nobody’s fool. He’s a solitary man. I’ve wondered, sometimes, if he’s lonely, but it’s hard to say. Just your stiff, formal, courtly French nobleman, I think. We’ll not break our hearts to see him go, and yet I shall be sorry in a way to lose him. There’s a shining, honourable love of God about him that’s a rare thing to see. Abbot Columba. Yes, he’ll wear it well.’

So the bishop brought him to St Alcuin’s, and Brother Edward watched with amused sympathy as the prior greeted them. The nails of Chad’s fingers were bitten to the quick, and his left eye was twitching as he welcomed them with the kiss of peace and played host to them at the abbot’s table. The senior brethren of the abbey dined with them, as did the bishop’s chaplain.

Mingled in the company, Brother Edward was able to study his nephew well. Father Columba had seemed pleased to see his uncle again, embracing him with a smile of pleasure and surprise, the sudden, vivid smile that Edward remembered in him as a boy irradiating his features with unexpected warmth.

Now, as Father Columba ate and talked, unmoved by the eyes of the brethren upon him, Brother Edward observed him thoughtfully. He looked at the piercing intelligence of the dark eyes, the controlled intensity of his manner, the impatient movements of his hands. ‘Like his father, Frenchman to the core,’ thought Edward. ‘Henri always talked more with his hands than with words. He’s grown as imperious and autocratic as his father too. Columba, my eye! They should have stuck with Peregrine. Dear me, yes. Poor old Chad. This man is going to come as a shock after Abbot Gregory.’

Brother Edward thought it was a huge joke that his nephew Peregrine had been renamed Columba, and he was still chuckling at the thought of it the next day as he made the beds and washed and shaved the aged brothers in his care in the infirmary. Brother John, who was his assistant, asked him what he was laughing at, and Edward told him how their new abbot had been Peregrine, the bird of prey, before he became Columba, the dove. Brother John grinned at the incongruity. Word got round, and it was not long before it was the joke of the whole community, and the new abbot was called ‘Father Peregrine’ behind his back, and ‘Father Columba’ to his face and to visitors.

The brothers of St Alcuin’s found their new superior rather unapproachable, his remote and reserved courtesy contrasting unfavourably with Father Gregory’s kindness. They found Father Peregrine’s imperious face and noble carriage intimidating, though they were cautiously proud of him, too. He proved to be a good and competent abbot, and ruled over his monastery with justice and integrity, commanding the respect and loyalty of the brothers, who would not, in any case, have dared to question his aristocratic authority.

A year went by, and the brothers began to grow accustomed to their new superior. Another year and they had almost forgotten what it was like before he came. It was Easter, two years after Father Peregrine had come to be their abbot. Easter, the greatest feast of the Christian year, and all the local people had come up to the abbey, and the guest house was full of pilgrims come to celebrate the feast of the Resurrection. So many people, so many processions, so much music! So many preparations to be made by the singers, the readers, those who served at the altar and those who served in the guest house, not to mention those who worked in the kitchens and the stables. The abbey was bursting with guests, neighbours, relatives and strangers.

The Easter Vigil was mysterious and beautiful, with the imagery of fire and water and the Paschal candle lit in the great, vaulted dimness of the abbey church. Brother Gilbert the precentor’s voice mounted joyfully in the triumphant beauty of the Exultet; all the bells rang out for the risen Lord, and the voices of the choirboys from the abbey school soared with heart-breaking loveliness in the music declaring the risen life of Jesus. Easter Day itself was radiant with sunshine for once, as well as celebration. Oh, the joyful splendour of a church crammed full of people, a thundering of voices singing ‘Credo—I believe.’

The newest of the novices, Brother Thomas, known to the other novices as Brother Tom, who had just two weeks ago taken his first vows, stood almost dazed, transported by the beauty of the celebration. He had been in the community only six months, having entered once his father’s harvest was safely gathered in, in the autumn of 1305. His father, a big, strapping, red-faced man, a Yorkshire farmer born and bred, had accompanied him to the abbey. His mother they had left in tears at home. She had only two children, both sons, and they were her whole life. In addition to this, the farm could ill do without the sons’ labour and management. But God calls whom he will, and devout Christians both, the lad’s parents respected and supported his wish to try the religious life.

With an almost oppressive sense of awe, the two men had entered through the little portal set in the massive gates of the abbey enclosure. They were put at their ease again by the kindly welcome of Brother Cyprian, the old porter, who had chatted comfortably to them as he escorted them to the abbot’s lodging. His broad Yorkshire accent was something of home in this imposing place. ‘Tha munnot fear Father Abbot, lad. He’s not an easy man, but he’s a good man for all that. Tha mun speak up for thyself, for he’ll not bite thee. Through here, this is our refectory. Through yon door into t’ cloister, aye, that’s it…. Now then, here we are, this is Father’s house.’

What Brother Thomas remembered most of his first meeting with Abbot Peregrine (apart from the dark grey eyes that looked as if they could read his mind) was the quick, eloquent gesturing of his hands, the way he drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the table as he looked at Tom and weighed him up. In the abbot’s hands all his vitality, his restless energy seemed concentrated, and the lad was fascinated by the long, fine, strong, restless fingers, so different from his own. He looked down at his own hands, broad and work-hard, rough and weathered already at nineteen years old, and reposeful with the peace you so often see in a farmer’s hands. They rested on his thighs as he listened to his father discussing him with the abbot.

‘… and you can spare him, from the farm?’ the abbot was asking his father, probing. ‘Only two sons, you say? You can afford to let one of them go?’

The farmer met the abbot’s questioning gaze. ‘He’s not cut out for the land, not this one, Father. Neither use nor ornament to me is this lad, when his heart’s elsewhere. Any road, we shall see. I’d not wonder if the fire dies down before long. He’s a mighty trencherman—well, look at him, he’s built like an ox, both of my lads are—and he’ll leave a few broken hearts behind him among the lasses when he’s gone. To be honest with you, I cannot see him creeping about in silence or telling beads on his knees. As demure and quiet as young ladies are some of your brothers here, and that my lad will never be. But let him try it if he will. There’s always a welcome for him with his mother and me should it all come to nothing.’

This was the longest, most personal speech the farmer had ever made, and he took out his linen handkerchief and wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead as he finished. A smile twitched the corners of the abbot’s mouth. He was amused by the description of his monks. He was himself inclined to be irritable with the more timid and submissive men. The abbot turned his gaze on the farmer’s son, who returned it calmly, but felt somehow belittled and exposed by the aristocratic amusement with which he was regarded.

‘He thinks I am a peasant, and beneath him,’ he thought, somewhat resentfully, and stoutly endured the abbot’s scrutiny.

‘What say you then, my son?’ asked Father Peregrine. ‘Your father has little hope of your staying the course, it seems. It is a hard life. I shall think no less of you if you wish to change your mind.’

The abbot’s aloof, ironic manner nettled the lad; the educated voice with its slight French inflection grated on him. He spoke up impulsively, with some heat. ‘I doubt you could think much less of me than you do now, my lord, anyway. I am a common working man, not of your kind.’

‘Eh, then. Now, now!’ expostulated his father. ‘That’s uncivil, lad! Mind who you’re talking to!’ But the abbot ignored him and looked steadily at the young man, serious now.

‘Well, then? You are minded to enter with us?’

‘I am, my lord.’

And standing here in the sunshine and soaring music of Easter Day, Brother Thomas was glad and sure, at peace to his very soul. This was where he belonged.

‘Credo in unum Deum—I believe in one God—oh, yes!’

The next day, Easter Monday, most of the guests were leaving, and there was much coming and going, saddling of horses, saying of goodbyes. It was next to impossible to find anyone or get anything done. The place was in turmoil. After Vespers, as the sun was sinking, Brother Edward was sent with a message in search of Father Matthew, the novice master.

Edward went into the great abbey church, determined that this would be his last task before he sat down wearily for a bite to eat with the other brothers—and then Compline and bed. He was fairly confident he would find Father Matthew in the sacristy adjoining the choir, making sure Brother Thomas knew how to set out vessels and vestments for the Mass in the morning, putting ready the Communion bread, and marking the places in the holy books for the celebrant.

Brother Edward cut through the Lady chapel—the quickest way—and although by this hour it was all but dark in the church, he walked swiftly: partly because he was in a hurry, and partly because this was his home and he knew his way about as well in dusk as in daylight.

He was striding purposefully up the little aisle, peering ahead to see if he could make out a glimmer of light from the sacristy that would indicate Father Matthew’s presence within, when unexpectedly he drove his foot into a bulky obstacle across his path, and all but lost his balance. From the floor came a deep, inhuman groan of agony, like an animal, like something in the torment of hell.

Brother Edward’s scalp crawled, and gooseflesh stood out all over his body at the sound. His mouth went dry, and his hands trembled as he bent in the gloom to peer at and feel the bundle at his feet. As his hand moved over it, again came that groan: hideous, wordless in anguish. Brother Edward, thoroughly shaken, hesitated a moment and then decided to go for help, and a light.

Edging his way round whoever or whatever it was, he ran to the sacristy, where he found Father Matthew, as he had expected, laying out vestments with Brother Thomas. They looked up, startled, at Edward’s white, agitated face.

‘Brother, for God’s sake, come,’ he gasped. ‘Bring a light, make haste.’

Father Matthew asked no questions, but snatched up a candle and followed him, and together they hurried back into the Lady chapel, while Brother Thomas followed a little uncertainly, sensing trouble and not sure if he was expected to help or mind his own business. As he crossed the sacristy, he saw that Brother Edward’s sandal had left behind a trail of marks, and the one on the threshold of the room reflected the light a little as a sticky substance will. Frowning, he bent down and held the light to look closer.

‘Mother of God, it’s blood!’ he murmured, and carrying the light in his hand followed his superiors out into the Lady chapel.

There they found Abbot Peregrine, though his face was bruised and beaten almost beyond recognition. His body was tied and bound with his knees drawn up to his chin and his hands behind his back, the right side of his face laid open in a ragged gash that exposed his cheekbone and extended from his temple nearly to his jaw. Blood had flowed from his nose into his mouth and mingled with blood from a split lip. Two of his teeth were spat out on the floor in a sticky puddle of blood.

Appalled, the brothers looked at each other.

‘Who can have done this?’ whispered Father Matthew, but Edward shook his head.

‘So many strangers, so many guests. Did you not hear anything in the sacristy?’

‘Nothing, Brother. We came in through the main body of the church, not through here, just ten minutes before you found us. We saw no one. Whoever it was must have fled, because—’

‘All right, all right,’ interrupted Brother Edward. ‘Brother Thomas, find me something to cut these ropes with, the knife in my belt will be too blunt to do it carefully.’

Thomas ran off without a word, and Brother Edward gently felt Peregrine’s back and skull to be sure it was safe to move him. His hair was sticky with blood, and there was a swollen, spongy bruise, but his skull was intact. Thomas returned with a small knife, very sharp, filched from the kitchen, and Brother Edward took it from him and bent to cut the ropes that bound the abbot’s arms behind his back.

‘Lift the light a little, Matthew. I can’t see what I’m doing. Oh, but what’s this?!’

Peregrine’s hands, tied behind him, were smashed and mangled, grotesquely broken, disfigured and bruised. Gingerly, Edward cut the cords that bound him. They moved the benches aside and carefully laid him straight, and Edward felt all over him for broken bones.

‘That’s his collar-bone broken. Two ribs here. No, three. Hold the light steady, Matthew, let me look at his leg. No, his left leg, that’s it. His shin-bone’s smashed, look at this. That’ll never set straight. His knee too. Brother, what kind of devilish beast can have done this to him? And why? Dear Lord, what savagery! Nothing else broken, though. Brother Thomas, run to the infirmary and ask Brother John for a stretcher. Quick as you can.’

He sat back on his heels and looked down at the still, battered body.

‘Matthew, I kicked him,’ he said. ‘I came through in a hurry, and I stumbled over him. The moan of pain that came from him, I’ve never heard anything like it. He was lying here like this, and I kicked him. Still, thank God he’s alive, poor soul.’

Brother Thomas came back bringing a stretcher and with him Brother John from the infirmary. As gently as they could, they eased him onto it.

‘Brother, have a care for his hands. They may be beyond repairing, but we’ll not injure them further. Cross his arms so, that’s right. Now then, gently.’

They carried him to the infirmary, and he lay there as still as a corpse, his eyes swollen shut with bruising, his breath snoring in the oozing blood of his nose.

Until dawn, Edward tended to the broken mess of his hands, fine, scholar’s hands, shattered now. He made wooden splints, and set the bones and bound them straight, but knew with a heavy heart that those hands would never serve again to do fine lettering. He had set the leg bone as well as he could, but it was smashed, not broken clean, and he doubted if it would ever bear a man’s weight again. He set and bandaged the ribs and the collar-bone, too, and then washed and bound the other wounds, salving the bruises with ointments, and laying green poultices on the places where the skin was split. The hideous wound on his face he repaired as best he could. As the sun rose on the following day Edward sank down on his knees and prayed, offering up the work he had done, beseeching the Great Physician to make it good, to bring healing where his own skill fell short.

They thought Peregrine might die. By the mercy of God his skull and his back were not broken, but the men who had beaten him had left him for dead. However, he did not die, though for a long time he lay without motion or speech, unable to open his eyes. Brother Edward and Brother John took turns to keep constant watch over him, and Father Chad took up the responsibilities of abbot once again.

That first day, they began by dripping water through his lips from a soaked cloth. Then after two days, as the bruises began to subside a little, they were able to feed him broth and honeyed wine; slowly, slowly dribbling it in through the split, swollen mouth. It was impossible to say if he was in his senses or not, for he made no response to them at all. All the same, they talked to him gently and reassuringly, explaining what was happening to him, words of comfort and love. He was able to swallow most of the soup and wine they fed him, which Brother Edward saw as a sign of hope, but he did not speak to them for three days. By this time the swelling had eased, and his face was recognisable as his, in spite of the bruises and the gash down the right side. Brother Edward was fearful he might have suffered some internal injury, for there was bruising on his belly and back, but though he saw some blood in his water the first day or two, he seemed to have sustained remarkably little damage. They did not attempt to lift him to relieve himself, and he had to be cleaned like a baby.

They had just finished washing him on the Thursday morning, the third day they had been nursing him, when he spoke to them for the first time. He said, ‘Thank you.’

Like the other brothers, Brother Edward had respected—but had no especial affection for—their austere, uncompromising abbot, despite his blood-relationship. But nursing that battered body and fighting for him in intercession, he had come to care passionately what became of him. Day and night, he and Brother John had taken turns to watch over the suffering man.

A flood of relief and joy and love welled up in Edward as he raised his head and met Peregrine’s eyes, which were open at last. He saw the look in those eyes change from a bleak gaze of hopeless pain to wonder at his own face so full of love and relief. Compassion mingled with the relief as Edward saw that the man was astonished to find himself loved. He always remembered the amazement in Peregrine’s eyes as the abbot found the love he had never inspired, never won, now given him as a gift in the midst of his helplessness and pain.

In the end, it was that love which pulled him through the horror of what had happened to him, and of his helplessness. His proud, independent soul writhed at the humiliation of being fed and cleaned like a baby and recoiled from the prospect of facing life with maimed hands and a useless leg. He spoke little, and complained not at all. ‘Thank you,’ were the words most often on his lips.

Though he seemed calm and self-possessed, Edward, knowing him from childhood, guessed at the howling terror inside, and would sit and say the Office with him and talk to him about the comings and goings of the abbey. He sat quietly beside him at night, too, when Peregrine slept restlessly, sometimes starting awake with a sob of fear. Beyond that, Edward felt powerless to help him, did not know how to reach through his abbot’s reserve to the terror inside, and comfort him.

As soon as he was able to eat, they propped him up to feed him, but he still couldn’t feed himself because his hands were splinted and bound.

Brother Edward asked him if he knew why he had been so savagely attacked, and he said yes, he knew. The words came painfully.

‘Many years ago now, there was one Will Godricson, who worked on my father’s estate. You probably won’t remember him, Edward; you were with the Franciscans by then. He killed a man in a drunken brawl. My father handed him over to justice, and he was hanged. He was a violent man to the point of insanity, and they could scarcely hold him on the day he was taken away. They bound him, in the end, bound him with his hands behind his back, his feet together and his knees drawn up to his chin. His two young sons were standing there watching; poor, scared ragamuffins, exposed to it all. They were brought up in violence, and they pledged themselves to vengeance on my father for their father’s life. They never found a way to carry it out on him; you know him, well guarded and well armed, he always carried a dagger and knew how to use it. But it must have come to their ears eventually that a son of that household lived here, accessible to visitors and without defence. I suppose they came with the crowd and waited for their moment.

‘I had been into the sacristy in search of Father Matthew; but not finding him there, I came out through the Lady chapel, where they were waiting for me. They must have followed me into the church. They approached me, and I greeted them. They seemed vaguely familiar, though it was dusk, and they were but children when I saw them last. They had the look of their father. One of them carried a club, which seemed strange, but then visitors departing on a journey need some defence in the moors and wild places. They… they said….’ He stopped, his voice unsteady, bit his lip and continued, ‘I… they….’ But his voice died to a whisper, and he closed his eyes and shook his head.

Edward laid a gentling hand on his arm, ‘No, no, lad, no need. Your body tells its own story.’ And beyond that, the tale was never told.

The day came when he was mended as well as he ever would be, and ready to take up his responsibilities as abbot of the monastery again. The collar-bone and ribs had knitted nicely, but the leg was stiff and crooked for ever, and as Edward had predicted, the shin-bone was too damaged to take his weight, so that ever afterwards he used a crutch to get about. It had to be a crutch, and not a stick, because in spite of Brother Edward’s best efforts, Father Peregrine’s hands were misshapen and twisted. He had stretched them out to defend himself against the club, and to save himself as he was knocked to the ground, and in their cruel, insane vengeance, his attackers had stamped on them in their heavy labourers’ clogs: not once, but again and again and again.

The brothers were unsure how to behave towards him when first he came among them again. It was as though their abbot had been taken away, and this was another man. Used to the imperious, aristocratic, decisive figure they had known, with his swift, purposeful stride and his hands gesturing impatience, they were appalled by the look of him. He had grown very thin, his face disfigured by the livid scar, his eyes shadowed with pain. His hands were good for almost nothing now, and although he did not try to conceal them, he no longer moved them as he talked, but kept them still. He went every day to the infirmary, at Brother Edward’s insistence, so that Edward might massage the broken hands with his healing aromatic oils, and help him exercise them. Yet though he could feed himself, albeit slowly and with difficulty, and write, though laboriously and untidily, he would never again work on fine manuscript illumination, or sit late at night writing essays, sermons and poems. He could not even cut up his food or fasten his own sandals, and the hands tended to cramp into claws if Brother Edward left off his care of them for any length of time.

Peregrine’s progress about the place was slow, lame and awkward, painful to watch. There were those who wondered if a man so broken would be fit to continue as abbot of a monastery, but they bided their time and gave him his chance. They found him changed in other ways, too. The old arrogance and self-assurance had been knocked out of him, and he was humbly grateful for the help his brothers gave him to turn pages and cut food. The constant need for help in everyday things brought him closer to the brothers, and the quietly spoken ‘Thank you, brother’, with an appreciative smile, were what they had gained in exchange for the imposing figure they had lost. Uncle Edward said that few of the brothers guessed just what it cost Peregrine to come among them again, disfigured and clumsy and slow.

Brother Thomas was one of those few. He had helped to carry Father Peregrine to the infirmary that Easter Monday night, and then wandered away to sit on his own in his cell, no longer needed in the infirmary, but with no stomach for company. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the limp body, beaten almost senseless, broken and bloodied. Every time he opened his eyes, he saw the tortured man hanging on the crucifix on the wall of his cell. He couldn’t decide which was worse. In the end he sat staring at the floor until the bell rang for Compline, when he rose automatically to his feet and went down to the chapel. He sat through the Office in a daze, and was glad of the shelter of the Great Silence as he walked numbly back to his cell afterwards.

Late, late that night as he lay awake on his lumpy bed, unable to sleep, he could not expunge from his mind the sight of those hands: destroyed, hopelessly mangled, swollen, bleeding, lacerated. He felt sick at the memory. He stared into the darkness, thinking of the cool self-possession of the man, the resolute, intelligent face, the eyes with their almost fanatical intensity, the proud bearing of him; but above all he thought of those quick, impatient, clever hands—oh, smashed. The brutality chilled him.

Even that memory failed to prepare Brother Thomas for the change in Father Peregrine when he came back into the community again; the painful toil of his progress about the abbey, the way his ironic superiority had been snuffed out as if it had never been. Most of all Brother Thomas looked in horror and pity at the silenced hands, scarred and twisted, which Father Peregrine did not attempt to hide, but which no longer spoke in gesture and impatience as he talked. They were still now, bearing their own mute testimony to his suffering.

‘How can he bear it?’ said Brother Thomas to Brother Francis, his friend in the novitiate, as they went in to the chapter house together, on the last day of April, the day Father Peregrine officially took up the duties of the abbacy again. ‘How can he bear it?’

Brother Francis shrugged his shoulders. ‘It is for him as it would be for you or me, Tom. He probably thinks he can’t bear it, but what else can he do?’

One of the first and worst hurdles for Father Peregrine coming back among the brethren again was presiding over the community chapter meeting, held in the morn ing every day in the chapter house after Mass, when a chapter of St Benedict’s Rule was read, and the abbot gave an address to the brothers, and the affairs of the community were discussed. Easter Day had fallen early, on the twenty-sixth of March that year, and it was on the thirtieth day of April that Abbot Peregrine took his place for the first time in the chapter house again, to preside over the meeting of the brethren.

The reader that morning was Brother Giles, assistant to Brother Walafrid the herbalist, and he read in his broad Yorkshire accent chapter seventy-two of the Rule, the chapter set for that day.

‘Just as there is an evil zeal of bitterness which separates from God and leads to hell, so there is a good zeal which separates from evil and leads to God and life everlasting,’ he began, confidently. ‘Let monks, therefore, exercise this zeal with the most fervent love. Let them, that is, give one another precedence. Let them bear…’ Brother Giles’ voice faltered, and he flushed with embarrass ment. ‘Let them bear with the greatest patience one another’s infirmities—’ he gulped, and hurried on, ‘whether of body or character. Let them vie in paying obedience one to another. Let none follow what seems good for himself, but rather what is good for another. Let them practise fraternal charity with a pure love. Let them fear God. Let them… let… let… let them love their abbot with a sincere and humble affection.’ Brother Giles cleared his throat and finished hastily, ‘Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ. And may he bring us all alike to life everlasting.’ He sat down in confusion.

Abbot Peregrine sat with head bowed, dreading their gaze on him. Then he lifted his face, with the stark, hungry bones, the savage scar and missing teeth and dark, hollow eyes. ‘The sacred text in this morning’s chapter is from St Paul’s letter to the Romans,’ he said, ‘“Give one another precedence”. That is to say, treat one another with the deepest respect….’ He himself hardly knew what he was saying, but he managed to speak to them calmly and lucidly for ten minutes and conduct the business of the meeting. The first hurdle was past.

The next thing to face was his pastoral work with the brothers. Peregrine was worried about his novices. Although he trusted his novice master to guide and discipline them, he knew they needed the opportunity to talk things over with their abbot, too. They had had to make shift without it long enough.

Brother Thomas was asked that morning after chapter to come to the abbot’s lodging for his routine conference, to review his progress and consider his vocation. It was the first conversation Brother Tom had had alone with his abbot since the night before he had made his novitiate vows two weeks before Easter, and he found it hard to conceal his shock at the change in Father Peregrine. Those dark, penetrating eyes had never looked at him like that before; not with remote amusement, nor yet probing and challenging, but with… Brother Thomas searched for a word, and could only come up with… ‘gentleness’. The abbot was still straight and authoritative in his bearing, still shrewd in his appraising look, still very much in charge: but the look of him was quite different.

‘Grief,’ Brother Tom thought. ‘It’s grief. The man’s full of it.’ Father Peregrine had been asking him a question, but he had not been listening, and now he blurted out, ‘Father, I was there, the night they found you. I can’t forget it. I’m so sorry, Father— about your hands. I don’t know how you can bear it. Is there any way I can help?’

The abbot looked at him for a moment without speaking, and Brother Tom felt uncomfortable, and wished he had had the sense to keep quiet.

‘Thank you for your concern, my son,’ said Father Peregrine, evenly. ‘You might remember me in your prayers. Sometimes— there are times when I hardly know myself how to bear it. But that is not what we were discussing. I asked you, if you recall, whether things are going well for you, or if you have any difficulty.’

As Brother Tom’s father had predicted, the monastic life did not come easily to him. The worst of it was the food; not that the food was bad, but oh, so little of it!

Father Peregrine listened with sympathy to Brother Tom’s small and natural difficulties. He liked this straightforward young man, liked his zest for life and his candid way of speaking. It steadied him to concentrate on something other than the horrors that haunted his memory and the nightmare of his helplessness.

When their conversation was finished and Brother Tom left, Father Peregrine sat thinking about him for a moment. ‘That young man could save my sanity still,’ he said to himself. ‘Everything that is whole and healthy and good is there in him.’

Brother Tom, on the other hand, felt unhappy. Leaving the abbot’s house, he had a sudden memory of his mother carrying a full basin of milk to the dairy, full almost to the brim, moving with infinite steadiness and care lest she slop it over.

‘That’s it,’ he thought, ‘he’s like that. He’s so full of grief that he daren’t relax in case it overflows. He’s the abbot. He’s all on his own. Oh, God help him, poor soul.’

Brother Tom thought about it through the midday office of Sext and through the midday meal. After the meal, as he was leaving the refectory on his way to work in the vegetable garden, he was still thinking about it when he was hailed by Brother Cyprian, the porter.

‘Brother! I’ve some letters in t’ lodge for Father Abbot. I’d thank thee if tha’d spare my old bones and fetch them over to him. Will tha do it for me?’

‘Gladly, Brother,’ said Tom cheerfully, and walked back to the porter’s lodge with old Brother Cyprian, suiting his steps to the old man’s slow pace. At the porter’s lodge, he stayed talking an hour or more with Brother Cyprian, who had an inexhaustible fund of stories about monks past and present, and seemed to know the history of every brother in the abbey. He was careful in his talk, giving away nothing that could embarrass or damage, but that still left him plenty. Blithely indifferent to the passing of time and to the rule forbidding unnecessary conversation, he would have gone on all afternoon, but eventually Tom’s conscience could no longer ignore the fact that he was at this moment supposed to be working in the vegetable garden, and he picked up the abbot’s letters and stood up to go.

‘Aye, good lad, thanks for that, Th’art going by that way aren’t tha?’

‘I am,’ said Tom, with a smile. He was now. He’d been going in the opposite direction in the first place. He took the letters, bade farewell to Brother Cyprian and strolled back across the courtyard, through the refectory and along the cloister to the abbot’s house. He hesitated a moment, but the door was ajar, and he knocked shyly, then pushed it open and stepped inside.

Across the room, Father Peregrine was seated at his table, evidently engaged in study, for he had an untidy pile of manuscripts spread on the great oak table in front of him. He was not looking at them, though, nor did he see Brother Tom come in. He was sitting hunched over his table, gazing dully at nothing in particular, sitting very still, except that he was repeating one slow gesture. He was wiping the side of his scarred hand slowly across his mouth, like a little child that wipes away the crumbs of food before he runs out to play, or the old man whose frail and shaky hand wipes away the dribble of saliva from the sunken lips of his toothless mouth.

It could have been absentmindedness, could have been the unconscious gesture of a man deep in thought. But watching, Tom realised (and the realisation wrung him) that the slow, repeated movement, the slight frown, the gazing but unseeing eyes—all were nothing to do with being lost in thought or absent dreaming. The man was tortured by unbearable misery; at last he let his hand drop, and laid his face down upon it, not weeping, hardly even breathing, just tensely, despairingly still.

Brother Tom felt ashamed that his response was a strange, unreasonable resentment. His discomfort crystallised into a prayer, ‘Oh God, what do I do now?’

He felt awkward about being there, witnessing the misery that lay behind his abbot’s dignified and unruffled composure. He wanted to slip away but could not ignore the question that whispered inside: ‘If it was me? If it was me—could I face it alone?’ And yet he was afraid to intrude. As quietly as he could, he stole across the room, put the letters down on the pile of books, and sat down on the stool that stood before the table, facing the motionless man. He waited a moment, leaned his elbow on the table, leaned his chin on his hand. He wanted to touch him, but dared not; wanted to help him weep, but had no idea how to.

In the end, though, he could no longer concentrate on his own apprehension and self-consciousness. Instinct got the better of him, and reaching out his hand he laid it on the other man’s arm without even thinking.

Father Peregrine lifted his head and looked at him. For a minute, his eyes were bewildered, unfocused in the scarred and haggard face. His lips worked a little, but no sound emerged, like a man who has forgotten how to speak.

Then, with a sigh, he smiled, and looked with attention at Brother Tom. ‘I do beg your pardon, Brother,’ he said quietly, in a most normal, level tone, ‘I was not aware of you. Can I help?’

Tom was dumbfounded.

‘I doubt it,’ he said at last, bluntly. ‘Not in the state you’re in.’

Father Peregrine just looked at him, opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again, shook his head, shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.

Again the picture flashed in Tom’s mind of his mother carrying the bowl of milk, carefully, oh so carefully. ‘One jog and he’ll spill the lot,’ he thought, ‘and by my faith he needs to spill that grief.’

‘Maybe, if you could tell me, Father… well, perhaps I could help?’ ventured Tom, unsure, feeling irritated at his own uneasiness in the face of the desolation his superior was struggling to master.

‘Son, it is good of you to ask,’ he said eventually. ‘But my burdens are not for you to carry.’ His voice was a little uneven, and the tension of maintaining his self-control was causing him to shake slightly. ‘My son, forgive my discourtesy. Unless your errand is urgent, might we discuss it some other time?’

Half of Brother Tom wanted to say, ‘Of course, Father, I quite understand,’ and beat a hasty retreat. He never knew where the other half got the courage from, but he replied, ‘To be honest with you, I’ve forgotten why I came. But I know why I’m not going.’

Without giving himself time to think better of it, he followed his impulse, and leaping to his feet dragged the heavy table askew so that he could approach his abbot—who watched him, wide-eyed, white-faced and, Tom realised with a stab of pity, scared. Brother Tom seized the stool, placed it emphatically beside his superior’s chair, and sitting on it, took the man in his arms and held him close. ‘It’s all right,’ he said gently, ‘you can let it go.’ He cursed himself for a fool as he felt the awful rigidity of him, like a man of wood; but he persisted, holding him, not speaking, his thoughts racing. ‘Oh well, might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. Faith, I wish I’d shut the door. I hope to God nobody walks in on this. Maybe I should go now….’

But as Brother Tom held him and the fortress of his iron self-control was replaced at last, at last, by the fortress of the arms of someone who loved him more than he was in awe of him, Peregrine began to weep, and wept until he lost all self-control and abandoned himself to sobbing grief. ‘My hands…’ he wept, the words barely intelligible, ‘Oh, God, how shall I bear the loss of my hands? To have died would have been nothing… oh, but my hands… oh… oh God….’ and the words were lost in uncontrollable tears.

What comfort could Brother Tom bring but his presence and his silence and his holding him?

The bell for None began to ring, and the monotony of the bell’s clang, which normally spoke peace to Tom, suddenly infuriated him. The Office? What insane futility! When a man has lost his skills, his independence and all his sense of dignity, must the afternoon Office intrude on his grieving?

But Peregrine lifted himself away from Tom’s embrace, and sat for a moment, shaken, his breath coming unsteadily still. He dug in his pocket for his handkerchief, and shakily wiped his eyes and blew his nose. ‘Unless I am mistaken, my son, that is the bell for None. My lateness may reasonably be excused without explanation, but I doubt if yours will. Perhaps you would spare me that disclosure and be there in good time.’

That was the nearest he would stoop to begging Tom not to tell anyone, but Tom understood well enough, and he never did tell anyone until after Peregrine’s death.

Brother Tom nodded soberly and, replacing his stool, dragged the table back into position.

‘Brother Thomas.’ The abbot’s quiet voice arrested him as he reached the door. ‘Thank you. From my heart, Brother, thank you.’

This small incident remained a living bond between the two men ever afterward, and kindled in Brother Tom a deep protective love for his abbot. As for the rest of the brothers, Father Peregrine bore their curious glances without a word, and their pity too, and knew very well their doubts as to his fitness to rule them any longer.

In the end, though, it became apparent to all the community that he had a new authority about him now. For whereas before he had ruled with a natural strength and ability over other men, now he was learning to cling to the grace of God and find his strength there. He had commanded their respect before, and it had been based on the fear of his power over them. He earned their respect in a new way now, respect mingled with admiration and love, because he had found out for himself what it was to be weak—weak enough to need his brothers’ help—and his authority over them now was born of humble understanding.

Great-uncle Edward had many tales to tell of Father Peregrine, after the terrible thing that happened to him. Uncle Edward said it crippled his body, but it set his spirit free. He said that most men would have become bitter and closed in, but Peregrine did not. He used his own weakness as a bridge to cross over to his brothers, when they too were weak. Having lost everything, he gave his weakness to God, and it became his strength.

In a way, all the tales are one tale, the tale of how God’s power is found in weakness. But that is the story of the whole of life, if you know how to read it right.

Mother sat for a while in silence. The candle had burned low, and the room was very quiet.

‘Are you asleep, Melissa?’ she said then.

‘No. I was thinking about Tom. He was brave, wasn’t he?’

‘Mmm, yes. Yes, he couldn’t be sure how it would turn out.’

‘And his name—Father Columba, I mean. He did get gentle, like a dove.’

‘Yes, it was a good name after all. Everyone still called him Father Peregrine, though, and he could still be pretty fierce and tough, when he needed to be. The difference was, now they weren’t too scared to call him it to his face.’

Mother said in the morning she was sorry she ever started to tell me about Abbot Peregrine, because that night I woke the whole family, screaming and struggling in my sleep, terrified by nightmares of those grim vengeful thugs, stamping with indifferent cruelty on the fine, scholarly hands, flung out in helplessness on the stone chapel floor.