Chapter
Twenty

The cardinal Office; the hinge that begins to close the door on the day at the end of the afternoon and the beginning of evening. The sun sits low in the sky, flooding in through the great west window and the open door to fill the church with hazy amber light, the colour of silence and gentleness, the colour of kindness and peace, the colour of friendship. The community rises, the reader asks a blessing, the cantor sets the swell of the chant flowing in rhythm from one side of the choir to the other. And so the day quests towards its end.

Brother Cedd’s stall is still empty. The abbot and novice master no longer question each other’s glance. They are just waiting, hoping.

Vespers sung, the brethren filter through to the lavatorium to wash their hands, then into the frater for supper. Today, Brother Cedd should have been serving: no comment is made, beyond the novice master asking Brother Robert to take his turn.

The servers have set the dishes out for them, and Colin inspects their contents with more interest than usual. The bread and salad they always have, and small beer. Butter, a very modest allocation of soft white cheese, half an egg. Sometimes they would have a whole egg; it’s only now Colin realizes he’s looking at the results of the kitchener’s efforts to make limited amounts stretch. Because they ate the eggs when they would have had chicken or fish, they’re short on eggs now. Because the big cheeses in store have diminished substantially, they’re on to what Brother Conradus can make in just a few days from their own herd’s milk as it comes in. Colin can see what he’s done to try and eke things out – given them a substantial portion of bread; made it with herbs and plenty of oil, so it tastes really good, and added to it a generous allowance of butter. There are big dishes of plums, baskets of apples, and bowls of blackberries on the tables. A really nice supper, in fact. The blackberries are shining, still wet. It took a long time to pick them, then, after he had, Conradus discovered in among them a considerable quantity of tiny, threadlike white caterpillars, hard to pick off. So he soaked them through the afternoon, then washed them through three waters; and he hopes that’s been enough. He’s set out bowls of whipped cream at intervals along the tables. His hope is that if any of the tiny larvae remain, they’ll be mistaken for minute stray splashes of cream. Provided no one watches long enough to see them wriggle, they’ll be none the wiser.

The tables range round the edge of the refectory, so the men opposite are some distance away; but this room is in the west range, and well lit at this hour of the day. As the reader – Brother Germanus, competent but rather quiet – goes through the biblical portion set for this evening, then on to the appointed section of commentary, Colin watches Brother Cormac across the room. Colin has his back to the wall set with tall windows to the abbey court. The rays of the low golden sun come slanting through; in some cases right into the eyes of the brothers opposite. This means he can watch Brother Cormac without the cellarer noticing. An interesting man. His black hair, streaked with grey, tousles in disorderly curls around his tonsure. His mouth is firm, decisive, and his jaw has a resolute set. The contours of his face are steadfast shading through to stubborn. Even across the room the blue of his eyes pierces like shards of ice. His black brows and long eyelashes somehow combine with that fierce blue to give the impression of spikes. You wouldn’t argue with him, Colin thinks. You wouldn’t even bother to try.

The man’s hands, as he breaks his bread, are bony, long-fingered. But there is something fastidious in his touch, as there is also a quality in his face – something subdued… a… what? Colin searches for the feeling of it – nobility? Refinement? Dignity?… or… perhaps something more ordinary; that he feels chastened and unhappy. It could be that. As he watches, he sees the cellarer pick up his half egg and unobtrusively put it onto the plate of the man next to him – Brother Thaddeus. Colin wonders why he did that. Is it an objection to eating the egg – is this too a theft of life? Or is he feeling ashamed about the shortages he’s created, and doing what he can to put things right? He strongly suspects Brother Cormac is not allowed to do what he just did. You’re meant to eat what they give you. It’s part of being grateful; it’s about lowliness.

As Colin tears his bread, eats his own half egg, he reflects on the conversation he overheard standing outside the checker. Cormac’s notion that they should respect the lives of beasts and birds is entirely new to him. Did not God put them on earth solely for man’s use and pleasure, then? Could it be true that they have a point of view of their own? To slaughter the bull calves, to hook the fish from the stream, break the neck of the fattened capon – did that matter? He’s never met anybody in all his life so far who advanced an even similar opinion.

He thinks back to what the abbot said – “These things mean a lot to Brother Cormac” – and something else begins to take shape in his mind.

He felt drawn to this community by what he saw in the brethren – their quiet courtesy, their erudition, the hospitality they offer, their tact and graciousness – so much that he admires, and aspires to learn and emulate. In the short time he’s been here, he’s found the novitiate a cheerful environment. His fellows are good company; reverent but capable of a prank, not slow with their jests nor very tolerant of sanctimonious piety. But still the solemns seem to earn the name: remote in their distant world of full profession they go about their day, and he’s thought of them as “the community”, “the brethren”; which, each one self-effacing, they seem to encourage.

But now he has the first glimmer of an insight into the reality – which is so obvious once he puts his mind to it – that they are only people. Human. Individual. Real. There isn’t – and yet there is – such a thing as “the community”. That is to say, its arising angel is entirely made up of the effort, the faith, the love, of these men. And if they are simply human, people after all, that means they are flawed and quirky. They must have their oddities like everyone does. Some will be easy for him to live with, others perhaps positively repellent. This was always true, of course it was, but right now as he watches Brother Cormac sitting in the sunbeam, surreptitiously slipping Brother Thaddeus his egg, it becomes startlingly clear. The community is not an entity. It’s just human frailty in all its ordinariness stitched together with love. It’s just thirty-one men finding the willingness and the courage to say “Yes”, again and again and again.

Surprisingly often, Abbot John has cause to reflect on how excellent an appointment is Father Francis as prior. Why didn’t I see it myself? he often asks himself. Why did it take William to notice that Francis would be the man?

For in any Rule of any religious order you care to dip into, every detail of the character needed to make a good prior reads like a description of Father Francis. Patient and courteous and diligent? Why, yes he is. Kind and friendly, a peacemaker? Yes, that’s Francis. Adaptable, sociable, humble, intelligent, gentle? All of that. Ready with his smile, tactful, pleasant, a good example as a Christian man? Indeed, he is. He can even speak French and is as much at ease with the aristocracy as with the common man. At first when you read the outline of what’s expected in a prior, you begin to laugh and think, “Good luck with that – were you looking for an angel?” And then when you read through a second time, you can’t help but notice: wait – but that’s our Francis. That is what he’s like.

Second only to the abbot, and often acting as his deputy, the prior has many duties. He doesn’t check everyone’s up for Nocturns nor take round the lantern in the night Office – at St Alcuin’s, that’s the sacristan’s job. He does, after Compline, sprinkle them with holy water as they go past him to retire for the night; but he doesn’t go so far as to herd them up like sheep and see to it that every man’s in bed. That’s not how they do it here. If some want to keep vigil after Compline has ended, that’s up to them. And they, who have to be up again at 2.30 to pray, can usually be trusted to go to sleep.

But he does keep the keys to the cloister buildings, after locking them up last thing at night. It’s about this that Father John comes looking for him on the way out of supper.

The abbot sounds slightly apologetic, looks faintly embarrassed. Another of Francis’s impressive assortment of talents is that he’s exceptionally good at reading people. Sensitive and diplomatic, he avoids putting them on the spot or dragging their vulnerability into the light. But he can’t help noticing – in this instance – that the abbot is uncomfortable with how exposed this makes him feel; that having a novice go missing means so much to him.

“Francis – of your charity – would you delay locking up tonight? In fact, may I take the keys, because you’ll obviously want to get some rest? I don’t expect you to sit up waiting, but… I’m sure Brother Thomas will be home, it’s not that. It’s Brother Cedd. I’d hate it if… I couldn’t bear it if he – well – I keep thinking, if he changed his mind and came home, only to find we’d locked up and gone to bed. I’ll ask Brother Martin to leave the postern door unbolted. But I won’t leave us without a watchman; I’ll stay up, I promise. And if he does come home, I’ll secure everything then. So may I – just this once – may I take the keys?”

And Francis, understanding, obliging, goes directly to fetch them from their nail on the wall in the checker, brings them straight to his abbot, and gives them into his care.

“Am I… you don’t think I’m being too indulgent?” John looks at him anxiously.

Francis smiles at him. “I believe it has good precedent in the New Testament,” he says. “‘How think ye? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?’”²³

John listens, reassured. “Yes,” he says. “‘Venit enim Filius hominis salvare quod perierat.’”²⁴ Then he stops, suddenly uncertain. “You don’t think… I’m not meant to go and look for him?”

“Father,” says Francis, calm and reasonable (as a prior should be), “better not be over-hasty. Give him some space. He’s not yet made his solemn vows, and he isn’t our prisoner. Just cut him some slack, stop worrying – see what the morning brings.”

The abbot sees this makes sense, sees this is a sensible, moderate approach; in fact, exactly what you might hope for in a prior. Then he says one thing more, which to John is the best of all, because he really means it: “I’ll be praying for you, John – and for him as well.”