Bread

by Stephen Brown

TAKEN FROM THE RIGHT AND ORDERLY NOTEBOOK OF SADFAEL THE MONK

  Well, wherever, or rather, ‘whenever’ I am, things seem to happen exceedingly quickly here. It is now the evening of the fourth day since my arrival and what a day it has been!

  I must point out at this point that although the Sun dipped well below the horizon some three or four hours since, it is still as light as day in my palatial room. They have automatic candles here - that is to say you need not light them, nor do they ever seem to burn away! You simply push a contraption on the wall and ‘click’ on they come. And then ‘click’, off they go again. No matches, no wax, no flames. Just light, and a hundred times brighter than a candle too! It is that type of light one finds given off by fireflies as they dance their merry dance down by the river in the Eastern Gardens, over towards the Cloister of St. Cribbins. If you can imagine capturing a hundred, nay, a thousand of these flies, and containing them inside a bowl of blown glass, stoppered and hung from the ceiling, that is the nearest I can come to describing it!

  But once again, I am rambling. It would be all too easy for me to fill these pages with all the ceaseless wonders I find around me, but I must come to the point. Much has happened today and here is a brief summary. Incidentally, my quill has been replaced by a strange, smooth object. It is long, thin and cylindrical in shape, like the shaft of a normal quill, but has none of the feathers you would usually expect to find. The ink is actually housed inside the shaft itself! Laughably simple really. But aaargh! No! Yet still I find myself wittering on! Focus, Brother. Concentrate! Here is the story.

  Early in the morning I was aroused from my slumber by the sound of wheels upon gravel. It was another of these horseless carts that I see whizzing past me day and night. It shocked me at first to see them and I crossed myself without fail each time I saw their eerily smooth shapes hurtling past, yet I have become as blasé about them as the next man in this short time. They are so numerous as to become commonplace. The Lord alone knows what drives them. The Reverend Pinball did try to explain it to me when I first enquired, but I could understand not one word, so we agreed it must indeed be the work of the angels and left it at that.

  I headed downstairs for hot, sliced bread and the juice of oranges, (despite the fact they are not yet in season!), and was joined by Reverend Pinball and the stranger who had just arrived.

  He had the appearance of a very respectable gentleman in his middle years and it looked as though life had been kind to him, as he seemed in excellent physical health. We were introduced and, to my utter amazement, he shared a name with our own Abbot, both being called Slush. Astoundingly though, this was not at all coincidence, as Mr Geoffrey Slush explained to me that he could trace his ancestry back hundreds of years and he was in fact a direct descendant of His Grace back at St. Malcolm’s!

  How extraordinary! It appears that this Mr Slush is one of the highest ranking members of our Church, yet he has no parish of his own. Instead, he is sent many miles in every direction by the hierarchy at Canterbury to investigate divine or satanic phenomena whenever it may happen that they should occur.

  We spent several hours together as he questioned me in order to verify the facts as I had told them. For his part, he had a great depth of knowledge about life in our times and of the Monastery itself. His clever questions were formulated so that they could not have been answered correctly by a madman or confidence trickster.

  After satisfying himself with my story he thanked me and then set about searching the church grounds and surrounding areas with several weird and wonderful pieces of equipment, looking for clues which will hopefully help in finding and retrieving the stolen artefacts. As he examined the area around the bench where I had first appeared, his long-handled ‘beeping’ device cried out in triumph – the device of which I speak is a type of broom or brush which is wont to make strange, high pitched sounds whenever it passes above or close by any objects made of metal. Laying this investigative aid down gently beside him, he took up his spade and started to dig.

  After only a moment or two’s labouring, he held in his hand several small objects, rusted with age, but which I recognised from over his shoulder as being parts of the satanic headgear worn by the fiend during our confrontation!

  Mr. Slush put these carefully into small pouches which you could see through just like a window. He then placed them in his bag and continued digging. More and more objects were unearthed, the most foreboding being a completely intact though somewhat dilapidated cone, rusted with age. It was one of the attachments that had been stuck, leech-like, to the demon’s head! I lunged forward and grasped his arm before he had a chance to handle it.

  “Your Grace, look out!” I had to warn him exactly what he was dealing with. Although I was holding him as tightly as I could, he reclaimed his arm as easily as if I were a malnourished child. Kindly he looked at me and yet I believe I saw a certain amount of exasperation writ into the lines of is face.

  “Sadfael, I have asked you not to call me that, please. I hold no such office. Geoffrey or even Slush are both fine; so please, once again, I am not ‘Your Grace.’”

  “Yes of course,” I mumbled. “Sorry Brother Slush.”

  He had also requested I did not call him ‘brother’ either, but for now all my attentions were firmly transfixed on that cursed artefact he had uncovered. It was all I could to keep from running until my legs would go no more. My whole body tensed as he reached once again for the heinous object and a tortured cry escaped my lips when his fingers curled around it and he heaved it out of the dirt.

  “Aieeeee!” I fear I screamed, falling backwards and flinging my arms across my face to ward off the evil I was sure was to come! After what seemed like an interminable length of time though (which the clock on the church tower claimed to have been even less than a single minute) … well, nothing happened.

  Peeping out from behind my arms - and feeling a little foolish – I sat up. Geoffrey was kneeling on his blanket quite calmly, examining the Hellish machine minutely through a disc of glass.

  “Brother, please take care,” I hissed

  “It’s really all right Sadfael,” he said. “Fascinating actually. I can’t be sure but it looks like a stainless steel shell, housing…” he squinted inside the thing, having to carefully scoop out several wads of mud before he did so. “It looks to be… a copper sheet of some sort, lying atop a layer of quartz crystals…” He brought his disc of glass to bear again, “… and inset at various points with… well, we’ll know more once it’s back in the lab.”

  He happened to glance across at me then and by the look on his face you might have thought I was drooling like an idiot. He turned his eyes to the Heavens and sighed.

  “Ok,” he said and then with an added depth to his voice “Fear not for me Brother Sadfael, for I am watched over by the Lord God Almighty and a Host of Glorious Angels.” His voice changed timbre once more. “Is that better for you?”

  I admire his strength, his courage, his resolve; I really do. I only wish I shared but a fragment of his iron nerve, not to mention his depth of faith. I must remember though – and I do keep forgetting - the Lord Himself picked me for this quest, so I must have some worthy qualities.

  Perhaps Geoffrey’s detector of ‘mettle’ could find them for me – but pardon me; this is hardly the time for a pun. For shame Sadfael, for shame.

  Brother Slush placed this crusted cone into a similarly see-through bag, and remained with us throughout the rest of the day, leaving no stone unturned in his observations. It was not until late in the evening, after he had had several private conversations with Reverend Pinball that he stood at the door as we said our goodbyes. And though this formality was not in itself another of these private affairs it might as well have been, for all I understood of it.

  “And you’re definitely sure you can’t take him with you?” the Rev. Pinball asked.

  “Sorry Gawdley, no. For the time being he’s much better off here. Have patience Reverend; patience and fort
itude.” The quiet authority with which Brother Geoffrey spoke left no room for argument. “First of all I’ll get the lab to have a look at this lot. Once I’ve seen the report we should know more or less what we’re dealing with. Then we’ll figure out what else to do; not before.”

  “But, wouldn’t it save everybody’s time if he just came back with you now? Surely they’ll want to speak to him.”

  “Gawdley, come on now. We’re all in this together. You would do well to remember your responsibilities; remember your vows.”

  “But he’s such a-”

  “Patience and fortitude Reverend,” he cut off Pinball’s final protestation. “As I said before, your request will be duly passed on, as will your comments.” He flicked his sleeve away from his wrist as I had seen him do on several occasions during the day and glanced at a band he wore around it. “Now I really must be off if I’m to be in Canterbury at any decent hour. Goodbye Brother Sadfael, Reverend. Just sit tight and wait to hear from us. We will be in touch within the next few days.”

  ***