by Hana Cole
The others are looking at the ground now. Etienne wants to throw the old bag’s hand off him and run.
‘I’m not a bastard,’ he mumbles. ‘My father died fighting bandits.’ To his horror he feels tears beginning to sting the back of his throat. He pulls away from the woman’s grip.
‘Not even your mother tells that lie,’ she spits. ‘Fighting bandits! Did you hear that, boys?’ Marc and his brother laugh along sheepishly. Etienne sets his jaw and glares furiously ahead, hoping that his eyes aren’t glistening noticeably.
As cross as he is with Marc, he is even angrier with himself. For giving up the stupid scroll in the first place, for taking the blame again, and for letting Marc’s nasty old sow of a mother talk about his family like that. He knows that Marc will justify his betrayal to everyone later by saying it was better that Etienne take the blame. Agnes wouldn’t even raise her hand to a dog, let alone to her own son. Even worse, Etienne knows that he will end up saying it’s alright, because Marc’s father is a violent drunkard who would thrash him black and blue. But also because that’s just what you have to do to keep friends when you are an outsider who came to the village without a father.
Chapter Three
The abbey sat at the bottom of the hill, towering stone that dwarfed all the other buildings around. The buttresses reached out like arms, drawing in all that might chance to pass under it. Above them the ancient bell tower stood watch, armoured in masonry against the hammer and blade of bygone invaders. The abbey had been built hundreds of years before Gui’s birth for the glory of St Peter and he wondered how many more hundreds it would stand. Perhaps thousands. A silent witness that would endure when no one would be alive to know of Bishop Reginald, of Abbot Roger, or of him.
Now, nearly two decades on, and every step along those cobbled streets had already been made by a thousand former versions of himself. Gui paused under the cool, thick arches of the abbey’s gate, felt his lungs expand and release, clearing the dust and fetid humours of the road. No matter the events that had occurred afterwards, there was still a strange comfort to the place. Here his eleven-year old self had found refuge from his father’s unpredictable violence, and his mother’s sad hopelessness that turned to sickness and finally to death. He had never quite been able to shake the notion that she had chosen death over spending another day under the fists of that man.
Glancing the limestone blocks, Gui fingered the memories, recalled the purpose with which he had stepped through the gates for the first time. Finally certain that God was on his side, he had vowed to work every day to make sure he served the meek, just as Christ instructed. It had been his deliverance and, also the place where he had first met Abbot Roger. The man whom he had wished a thousand times was his real father.
The old man was seated in the window alcove. There had been a time when Gui would have found him in meditation, but now he was dozing gently in the sunlight, the leaded window shadowed upon his face. Abbot Roger started at the knock on the door, face broadening as he recognised his former pupil.
‘Gui. Please.’ He beckoned Gui to sit with arthritic fingers. He had been old as long as Gui had known him, ancient even, but he had a frailty to him now that spoke of the end, his bones visible under the dry, papery skin.
‘Tell me how long has it been?’ The old scholar’s rheumy eyes searched for the memory.
‘Several years, master. Too many, I know.’
‘No, no. Since we baptised your son.’
‘Etienne?’ Stalled by the ease with which his old mentor could still read his heart, Etienne’s name caught raw in Gui’s throat. ‘Ten years already.’
‘Ah yes. Of course. He must be big now.’ Roger laughed like a child who had got away with a biscuit from the cooling racks.
‘He is.’
‘Tell me how he fares.’
The confessor reclined against the back of his chair, body sagging contently as he listened to his student’s tales. Gui entertained him with his news, local gossip, then fell back on the past, the preferred resting place of the time-weary mind. The confessor rallied and he talked of how it had been when he was a novice. When a different king had ruled France, long before Jerusalem had been lost to the Saracen and the great lords had grown fat and complacent. And he had believed that Bernard of Clairvaux would lead them all to a better world.
‘But man is not made for a better world. He is made for this one. The world has chosen a dangerous path.’ He sighed and lapsed into silence. Gui could feel time passing - in the echo of footsteps along some distant corridor, the chirp of a bird outside, the breath of the old man as he tired.
‘I should leave you to your contemplation, Master.’
The old monk smiled and gave the arm of the chair a resigned pat.
‘I do not think that you will see me again, Gui.’
Gui made to protest but Roger halted him with a tremulous hand.
‘I used to believe that the life of those born to pray need only be passed in prayer. But prayer is not enough to keep evil at bay.’
‘Master, you have done more than pray. Much more.’
‘I have risked very little. What of the rising tide of intolerance that I should have done more to dam?’ Regret moulded the scholar’s face. ‘But this body has no more to give.’ His lips parted with a sigh.
‘Where you are going you will have no need of it.’ The corners of Gui’s mouth turned up just barely, as though they were unable to support the weight in his eyes.
Abbot Roger’s brow rose fleetingly. ‘You think that you would have served the world better by living an ascetic life as I have?
Gui edged forward in his seat, readying his objection, but Roger continued, ‘And what of those priests who served the early church before marriage was prohibited, do you find them corrupted? They believed all love is of the Lord and is the Lord.’
‘If I have lived my life true to love then why do I still find myself living in fear for the lives of those I cherish?’
‘The bars of your prison are fashioned with guilt. As long as you try to silence the truth in your heart, another absolution from me gains you nothing.’
‘Master, I came only to see you, not to trouble you with confession.’ Gui shifted in his seat.
‘Look at me, Gui.’ Roger draped his hand over his chest. ‘This casing of flesh fails us all and Death is a quick-fingered accountant. Don’t wait until you feel his approach before you balance the weight in your heart.’
Gui took in the old man with a steady gaze. It was hard to look him directly in the eye and not see the end. But as much as he wanted to break the exchange, he found he could not. Abbot Roger nodded, encouraging Gui to pursue this strange exercise. Slowly, his beloved tutor’s face began to change, fading into shadow, until it disappeared, and in its place he saw his own. Startled, Gui blinked, and the confrontation with his own visage vanished.
His confessor spoke. ‘It is not the Lord’s forgiveness that you require, is it?’
Gui dragged his hand across his jaw. It felt as though his insides might spill out if he tried to speak. Eyes shining kindly, the monk opened his palms - an invitation to Truth. A tidal wave of silence compressed Gui’s lungs. He could feel his hands trembling.
‘I have to tell Etienne I am his father.’ The words tumbled out with an urgency that left him feeling naked. Gui smiled shakily. ‘My son is nearing manhood.’ His breath scorched as though he had been running. ‘I’m afraid it will be too late.’
‘Too late for what?’
‘It is easier to win the forgiveness of a boy than undo resentment grown in a man.’
‘So why do you hesitate?’
‘Agnes thinks he is too young. That the truth is more burden than liberation. All it would take if one careless slip of the tongue and…’ He shrugged off the familiar pinch that crept into his shoulders, ashamed to reveal how tight was the grip of this demon. ‘Rome kindles hatred with every new directive. How can I defend us…’ He stalled as he realised what he
was about to say.
The old man smiled indulgently. ‘You mean once I am gone?’
Abbot Roger gestured towards the bookcase, warped with the weight of the tomes, and with time.
‘What does Augustine say about the lion of truth?’
Gui’s eyes fell on the illuminated spine that rested on top of the vertically stacked books.
‘Let it loose; it will defend itself.’
‘Then really, what is there to fear?’
Roger pushed down hard on the window seat to stand on uncertain legs. Gui jumped up and took his tutor’s arm. He was shocked by how light it felt, how insubstantial the flesh. His mentor was little more than a frame.
‘It is not much at the end, is it?’
Gui found he could only shake his head in reply.
‘Promise me, Gui. Promise me you will do it. God will protect his own. Have the conviction of your faith. There is no greater reward than Truth on earth. Or in Heaven.’
Gui squeezed the old man’s hand and placed a kiss on his forehead.
‘You have done more than any man could ask to protect me, and my family. For that I am forever in your debt. Thank you.’
‘And I thank you for showing patience to an old man.’
Gui blinked back the emotion. ‘Bless you, master.’
‘God bless you, child. We are all poor sinners.’
Gui weaved his way back through the corridors and staircases of the abbey, but only when he was clear of the building did he allow himself to sit in the refuse by the roadside to mourn the old man, the wise compassion and faultless reasoning of which he would soon be bereft. And, more uncomfortably, to consider a world in which the tales and grievances that found their way back from Montoire to the bishop’s office would no longer be brushed aside out of respect for the venerable scholar. The fork in the road was clear: compromise or truth. Gui raised his eyes to the heavens.
A passing cart flung a spatter of mud at him from the gutter. A man and a young boy were heaving the wooden frame along the pock-marked road, their gait sagging from a long day’s work.
‘Watch the wheels!’ The man flicked a casual hand across the top of the boy’s head.
‘Sorry, father,’ the boy replied.
The man raised his brow, poked his cap up out of his eyes and raised half a smile. ‘It’s been a long day.’
A long day. An honest day.
‘Set it loose,’ Gui whispered to the memory of his mentor. ‘And come what may.’
Chapter Four
Etienne steps outside. The roar coming from the village sounds like a torrent of water. It takes him a few moments to adjust to the world; the shock of the rain on his skin, the biting wind, the half-light of dawn. He closes his eyes. The sound isn’t water. It is voices. Lots of voices, and drums. Scuttling up the branches of a tree he scouts the horizon – flags are piked aloft, flashes of red and gold against the dull sky. He eyes the track that leads to the grazing pastures. If the others have heard the commotion, they will have gone to investigate for sure. And he isn’t going to get stuck alone with the sheep for another day. No chance.
The road to the village is jammed with people; street vendors trudging with their wares, messenger boys on errands, women carrying bundles of laundry, kindling and who knows what else women carry. But there are other folk too, finer-dressed ladies, faces shielded from the weather under hooded capes, craftsmen, apprentices, and boys like him who should be somewhere else. Etienne weaves through the crowd, searching for a familiar face. When he reaches the square he sees banners marked with the cross, women praying, men rattling makeshift weapons. In their midst a group plays the pipe and tabor like they do to bring in May.
‘What is this?’ He tugs the sleeve of a shepherd boy called Jean from the next village.
‘There is a holy preacher here. They say he has been to the Holy Land to see the suffering. They are marching all over the Chartraine against the infidel.’
Jean is nearly a head shorter than Etienne, a thin-boned boy who walks with a limp, but there is something hypnotic about him. His eyes are pale grey, almost translucent, and when he looks at you it is hard to look away.
‘They say there is a shepherd boy called Stephen travelling with him, performing miracles for the love of Christ.’
‘Let’s go and see,’ Etienne says, and they squeeze their way through the crowd. Marc and a few others are in the thick of it, jumping up and down for a better view. Etienne has never seen a collection of such afflicted people in the same place. Some are leaning on others for support or even being carried, others are bent over walking sticks, limbs wrapped in bandages.
The preacher is standing on a wooden crate, dwarfed by a chestnut tree behind him. He looks almost too old to be alive. Ragged and filthy too. A large crowd has circled round him.
‘A piece of cloth from his robes can cure any disease,’ Jean whispers, and for a minute Etienne feels the world around him grow perfectly still.
They wriggle further into the crowd, inching their way to the front where people cry out for the preacher’s attention. Penned inside the throng, Etienne can feel the expectation rising up like vapour as they huddle together. The preacher begins with a quotation from the gospels and then falls silent, searching them with his pinprick eyes.
‘The way is clear. The humility that asks us to walk the treacherous path to the heavenly Jerusalem.’
People turn their heads, scanning the horizon as if it is possible to glimpse the holy city from where they stand.
‘But we will not be received into paradise as long as Jerusalem, the earthly castle of the Lord, lies under the shame of infidel occupation. His sacrifice for us forgotten by the rich and powerful sons of France. Sorry are they when they pass on to face Judgement! Repent and take up the cross for Christ the Son!’
For a fleeting breath the preacher’s eyes lock onto Etienne. He feels the hairs on his arms rise. The preacher moves forward to give a blessing. The crowd surges, and Etienne is lifted off his feet. Head tilted upward, he sups in some air as he is buffeted back and forth. When he regains his footing, in place of the preacher there stands a boy, not much older that he is, carrying a shepherd’s crook in one hand and a sheet of parchment in the other. He thrusts a parchment skywards.
‘It’s him!’ a voice calls out.
‘Stephen miracle shepherd boy!’ yells another.
‘Rise up for the Holy Mother!’ Stephen cries and the crowd goes beserk. All around people are throwing themselves to the ground, women wail, hysterical. The mass constricts, and with what feels like a blow from a pole, Etienne finds himself tossed down into the mud. Trampled by the weight of bodies that are squeezing the breath from his lungs, he thrashes out, desperately trying to win himself enough room to come to his knees.
Suddenly, everyone calms. A space before him clears. Etienne cranes his head up. The old preacher is there before them, arms aloft as though he is bathing in the rain. He passes his hand gently over the shepherd boys and as he rises, Etienne can feel heat radiating from the preacher’s body, intense as the flame of a torch.
‘Take heed of the holy one!’ shouts Stephen.
From beneath his cloak the preacher draws out a handful of small felt crosses. Jean inclines his knee and holds out his hands. His pale eyes are wide open. Tears stream down his face. The preacher places a cross into Jean’s palm. The boy brings the preacher’s white papery hands to his lips. The old man turns to Etienne and places his hand on top of his head. Etienne’s mouth feels dry. He swallows.
‘Peace be with you,’ the preacher says.
‘And also with you,’ Etienne hears himself reply.
The old man puts his fingers to Etienne’s face. They feel icy cold as they stumble across his features.
‘The preacher has angelic powers.’ Jean says as the holy man moves on. ‘He must have seen something in you.’
‘You took the cross.’ Etienne surveys Jean, incredulous. ‘You have to pay money if you take it and then don�
�t go overseas you know.’
‘Pay a conversion? Never. I am going.’ Jean fingers the felt cross. ‘I heard a voice. Not my voice. Not like when you talk to yourself. A voice from outside.’
Etienne isn’t sure how to reply so he shakes his head in wonder. Jean’s eyes are so transparent, so earnest, it is impossible to think he is lying.
‘It was a low voice. Not frightening. Just deep and clear.’
‘What did it say?’ Etienne asks.
‘It said, “kneel”. As Jean speaks Etienne hears a strange ringing in his ear. He poggles it with his finger but the noise persists.
‘I think you understand,’ says Jean.
‘Let’s get out of here before we catch something,’ Marc says, throwing a nod towards a group of supplicants, their wounds covered in rags. ‘My skin is starting to itch.’
‘I suppose,’ says Etienne, but he doesn’t want to leave. He is transfixed by the preacher as he walks among the suffering, calmly laying his hands upon them. He is so old, Etienne wonders how it is possible that he has never succumbed to leprosy or coughing sickness.
‘His faith protects him.’ Jean reads Etienne’s mind.
‘Witchcraft more like.’ Marc tugs at the gawping Etienne. ‘Come on, we can’t leave my idiot brother up in the fields by himself all morning.’
Reluctantly Etienne turns to Jean. ‘See you soon.’
‘You will.’ Jean’s eyes shine like glass. They seem to have their own internal source of light, and although he looks right at Etienne, his attention seems far away.
The others have already set off up the hill, so Etienne trudges behind, casting the odd look back to the square to see if Jean is still there, but all he can see is the crowd, stuck to the preacher like iron filings on a smithy’s floor.
‘Hurry up!’ Marc yodels.
‘I’m coming,’ Etienne yells, but he does not quicken his step. He feels as though he is labouring under a yoke, inexplicably short of breath. The rain has eased to a trickle. He stops to inhale the freshly-washed earth. The others have disappeared over the brow of the hill now. In his solitude Etienne feels calm, relieved.