by Norah Lofts
I was obliged to settle all these things in my mind rather quickly when it came to the point. After all the weeks of grumbling and plotting the decision to make the attack on the twelfth of November was only settled on the evening of the eleventh. On the morning of the twelfth I was helping a man to slaughter a pig; we had its throat cut and its guts out when the man’s neighbour looked over the wall and passed the news. I stood for a moment with my filthy hands hanging idle and the scent of blood in my nostrils and ran through all the arguments again. The townsfolk who had never shown me any kindness at all, or the Abbey which had given me alms and mended my leg? The townsfolk who would never do me any good, or the Abbey which might grant me the right to go on living in my hut?
I made up my mind, and striking my leg in a gesture of sudden comprehension I exclaimed,
‘Holy Mother, my shoe! The monk Anthony is the only one who knows how to mend it. If trouble is brewing I should get it done today.’
The man I was helping gave a loud yelp of laughter and smote me on the back.
‘Thass the way,’ he exclaimed, ‘take the honey before you smoke out the hive. Get what you can out of the rogues. They’ll hev more than shoes to mend tomorrow, I’ll warrant.’
I limped along to the Alms Gate and stood at the end of the little crowd who were drawing their dole. Brother Justinius was on duty, for which I was a little sorry; but when my turn came at last, I took off my shoe and leaning against the hatch said,
‘Brother Justinius, I have some information which is of importance to the Abbey.’
I spoke softly, for there were some who, having snatched their dole, were eating it then and there.
The monk had his wits about him. Taking the shoe he said in a loud, scolding voice,
‘What again! I declare you wear out more shoes than a tinker’s ass! You’d think Brother Anthony had nothing else to do. Wait there.’
He slammed down the hatch.
I curled my bare foot round the shin of my other leg and leaned against the wall. One by one those who were wolfing down their food finished it and wandered away: all but one, a stranger to me, his hand wrapped in a filthy, bloodied clout.
‘Keep you waiting,’ he said, coming close to me. ‘Keep you waiting like you was a dog, for the bits they scrape off their plates.’ He cleared his throat and spat out his rancour.
‘I must wait,’ I said. ‘Only the monk can mend my shoe.’
‘That may be. But if they was the kind brothers to everybody like they make out to be, wouldn’t they say, “Come in. Sit you down”, not “Wait there”. Same with food. Why, once I heard a Friar preach; telling about our Lord Jesus Christ…’ he crossed himself piously. ‘He fed five thousand once, and He said, “Sit down on the grass”, He said, “and be comfortable”. And he didn’t hev no hatches and waiting about till the hour struck. Fish He give them, too, and when their bellies wouldn’t hold another bite He filled baskets for them to take away. Maybe you never heard that tale.’
‘I’ve heard all the tales,’ I said shortly, wishing he would take himself off.
‘I’m a stranger here. I s’pose you don’t know a place where I could lay, cheap, for the night.’
‘As it happens, I do.’ I directed him to the loft where Kate and I had lived during our first weeks in the town. I praised it, saying it was so good, so cheap that if he wanted to get a bed he should hurry. As I talked he began to unwind the rag from his hand. Under it flesh and bone were whole and sound.
‘The monk will return in a minute. If you want to eat here tomorrow. …’ I said warningly.
He winked at me and hurried off. All poor men took it for granted that they were in league together, I thought. I was the one exception.
As soon as he had gone Brother Justinius opened, not the hatch but the whole door.
‘Come in,’ he said.
The room was small and square with wide wooden shelves on the walls to left and right of the door. There were the remains of the loaves, and the big bowls of pease-porridge, cooked and allowed to set firm and then cut into sections. Some one in the crowd must have claimed Trimble too, for there was a joint of beef, glazed and brown without, pink and juicy within, which even at that nervous moment, brought the water gushing into my mouth. I was meat-hungry. The thought struck me that had I stayed until that pig was dismembered I should have been given a couple of trotters, or even maybe a hock.
‘Now,’ Brother Justinius said, briskly, ‘what is it that you have to tell?’
Tell him, I thought, and he would push me out, go to his immediate superior and say, ‘A man at the Alms Gate just told me …’ How much would that profit me?
‘It is for the ear of my Lord Abbot alone.’
He looked at me. Kate went round my head and those of the boys every month with a pair of borrowed shears, and my time to be shorn was about due. Where I was not patched I was ragged, filthy from my last dirty job, and wearing but one shoe. A likely visitor for the Abbot!
‘Who sent you?’
‘Nobody. My own conscience compelled me.’
He gave me a cold cynical look and said,
‘Oh, come along. What is it you have to say?’
‘It is of importance. I can only speak of it to my Lord Abbot.’
He said to me with great seriousness.
‘Do you know what you ask?’ And I said to him with equal seriousness,
‘I know what I have to tell.’
I could see him debating with himself whether or not to open the door and push me out. Finally he snapped out the one word,
‘Come.’
He opened a door in the wall opposite the hatch and set off, at a great pace along a stone passage, so cold, with the stored up chill of many sunless years that my teeth began to chatter. After what seemed to my bare limping foot a long walk, he stopped and threw open a door, saying in exactly the voice he had used before,
‘Wait here.’
The room was warm, with a good fire on the hearth and settles on either side. I went and warmed myself, slowly turning round like a roast on a spit, then I sat down. Something about the way I had been received, and this long waiting, started a doubt in my mind. Might it not have been wiser to stay with my own kind, outside these walls, thrown myself wholeheartedly into their plot, perhaps distinguished myself by boldness in the assault, so that they would say – This man must be admitted to the Guild forthwith; he is worthy to be a journeyman.
Well, it was too late now.
The door opened and another monk entered. I jumped up, forgetting my bare foot, lurched and had to catch at the settle to save myself.
‘I trust you are not drunk.’
The voice was no more friendly than Brother Justinius’s, but it was different, cool, distant, very faintly amused. The face, narrow within the cowl’s shadow, matched it, thin sharply curved nose, arched brows above bright intelligent eyes. There was nothing about his garb to mark him from any other monk but I knew at once that I was in the presence of someone important.
‘I am sober,’ I said. ‘I am lame without my shoe.’
‘And you have some tale to tell. What is it?’
‘Are you my Lord Abbot?’
‘No. But you must make do with me. I am the Prior.’
It took all my courage to say again, ‘It is a matter of importance. It should be for my lord’s ear alone.’
‘I am his ear. Come now, I am waiting.’
I gave in and told him all that I knew. Except that his eyes narrowed a little as he listened I might have been telling him that the weather was cold. When I had done, he asked one question.
‘Why have you turned traitor to your fellows?’ His tone was curious rather than accusing or malicious, yet it shamed me.
‘I bear them a grudge for several wrongs they have done me. I was well treated in the Abbey Infirmary when my leg was broken. And I hope for a reward.’
His glance brightened.
‘I see. Well, rest assured that if your tale is tr
ue you will be well rewarded.’
‘It is true. Why should I come and tell …’
‘I have no time for that now. Wait here.’
He went away, swiftly and silently. Soon the door opened again and Brother Justinius entered. Behind him were two men, servants, one of whom carried my shoe.
‘Brother Anthony says that the upper hardly justifies a new sole, but it will last a little time. Put it on. Then these will show you the way.’
He left us and when my shoe was on one of the men said, ‘This way’ and went ahead, the other fell in behind me. I suspected nothing. The two men might be on their way to town on some business, they might even have homes there and be about to return to them. I did notice that we were not going along the cold passage that led to the Alms Gate, but there was nothing strange about that either. The Abbey had many entrances and the Alms Gate, so far as I knew, was only used for its special purpose. Once we emerged into the day-light and crossed a paved courtyard and I noticed that even out-of-doors the short winter light was waning. The next passage into which we plunged was almost dark. The man ahead of me stopped suddenly and threw open a door, and instead of going through the opening himself, stepped aside and waited. The man behind me gave me a slight push and I went through the doorway, not into the twilit street as I expected, but into the pitch dark, full of a stench which even I, accustomed to the Town Ditch, found sickening. Before I could turn the door behind me slammed to with a horrid, final sound.
XII
Stupid bewilderment was, for a long time, the only thing I could feel. Why do this to me?
Afterwards came terror. I had heard – as who had not? – of the deep dungeons under great castles where men were thrown and forgotten, left to starve to death or be eaten by rats or go mad and beat their brains out against the walls. Those dungeons had a Norman name, oubliettes, sinister indeed. Somehow I had never dreamed that an Abbey would have such a place. Even when Jack Noggs and the others had been dragged off and imprisoned I had imagined them in a less comfortable infirmary. Now I knew. I was in even worse case than they were, for they were accused of an offence, they would be brought to trial. I might very well just disappear and never be heard of again. Nobody outside these walls knew where I was.
Sweat of fear streamed over my body and dried cold as I thought about Kate and the children. I had never supported them, but there had never been a day when I had not somehow managed to contribute something to the household, even if it were only a bundle of firewood; and I had kept the hut standing and moderately weatherproof. Apart from that most material consideration there was Kate’s anxiety to worry over. Our first fond love had worn away, like the nap from a woollen garment, but below the fabric of unity was still strong; if she had failed to come home one evening I should have been distraught; I credited her with full as much concern for me.
I should have said that it was impossible to find any spot in Baildon out of the sound of the Abbey bells, but here the silence was as complete as the darkness. The cold had driven me to burrow into the heap of stinking straw and I lay there for hours wishing with all my heart that I had kept clear of this business, imagining Kate going home and waiting and wondering, waiting and worrying. For a long time misery kept me from feeling hungry but as the slow hours dragged by the gnawing began in my vitals. I was schooled to the feeling of not having had enough to eat, it was almost a constant state with me since my accident, but this was the painful urgent need to eat something, anything, the need that will drive a man to beg or steal. Presently, useless as I knew it to be, I was beating with my hands on the door and shouting.
Nobody noticed, probably nobody heard me. I remained alone with my fears and my hunger and the deadly cold which bit deeper as my hunger increased. In the end I was driven back to the straw again, and comforted by the warmth, fell into a state which was neither sleeping nor waking. Sometimes I was almost asleep, my miseries of mind and body became a little blurred and behind my shut lids scenes from my past drifted by, small and very clear. Then I would be jerked back to the straw and the hunger and the terror.
Once, thus jerked back, I had a new thought. I was going to die, and I was afraid to die. Keeping alive had been such a struggle that I had spared little thought for the state of my immortal soul; even the Friar’s words about attending Mass while in a state of sin had soon been, if not forgotten, pushed aside. Kate and I could not suddenly absent ourselves, and we could not be married openly without putting the brand of bastardy on the children, so we had gone on as before and I had not worried about it until now. Now not only that great sin but dozens of small ones must be remembered in torment. The lies I had told, one way and another! All out of necessity one might say, but each one a handing over of my soul to the Devil, the Father of Lies. I had more than once stolen things in the market – and never given the matter another thought. It hadn’t seemed sinful then, merely common sense, two eggs slipped from a basketful while the owner turned her back meant a meal for Stephen and Robin; I’d taken the nails that held my hut together from Armstrong’s stock – we made nails in slack hours at the forge and I had taken five from a chest containing hundreds. Such petty pilfering I had not even confessed when I might have done, they had weighed so lightly on my conscience. Now they loomed enormous, and presently, thinking of death and the Judgment I reached the point where even my running from Rede assumed the character of a sin. I was Lord Bowdegrave’s property and I had removed myself. …
Some remaining crumb of sanity became active then and I thought – How ridiculous! How can a man steal himself? And I laughed. The sound frightened me. I clapped my hand over my mouth. Mad, mad! Locked up in the dark, starving to death, and going mad. The next step was to beat my head against the wall and add self-destruction to my other sins.
I was at the door again, beating on it and screaming, not this time saying I was hungry, starving to death, this time begging for a priest, beseeching them not to let me die with all my sins unconfessed and unabsolved.
As before nobody came.
Beating on the door and shouting had been too much for me in my weak state; sweat poured off me again, my heart thudded so hard that it struck sparks from my eyeballs. Without knowing that I had fallen I found myself on the floor. Then the cold struck again and I crawled back into the straw, turned weakly warm, almost drifted into sleep again, and then was jerked back.
This time it was hope which tugged me. God was merciful. Jesus Christ, in His earthly life had been poor. Mary the Mother knew how one felt about one’s children and their hunger. I could pray for pity and understanding and forgiveness.
So I knelt on the damp stone floor and prayed, passionately. I mentioned every sin I could remember, even my running away from Rede which, I could see now was a sin, in that it was evidence of my discontent with the condition to which it had pleased God to let me be born.
I prayed for hours. I prayed until the sweat ran down my face and dropped on to the floor and as it ran I began again,
‘Sweet Jesus Christ who in Gethsemane …’ For He, too, knew the sweat of agony.
Then I swooned, or slept. From kneeling on the floor I was lying in the straw which had, all at once, lost its stench. I was waiting for something, something of which I had been given warning, a pleasant and comforting thing.
What did I expect? Some voice in the silence, something luminous in the dark?
When it came it was merely a thought in my head. I had no soul. Serfs had no souls. They were treated like animals and they were animals. The pretence that we were immortal, with Hell to fear and Heaven to hope for was simply a trick to make us well behaved.
How simple and how sensible, I thought. No master, no steward, however watchful, could keep an eye on us all the time, it is therefore greatly to their advantage to teach us, ‘Thou shalt not steal’ and make us believe that thieves go to Hell.
Priests pretend too; it keeps the churches full and Peter’s Pence rolling in. That must be true because monks are religious men
and if they believed that I had a soul they would never dare leave me to die here with my sins unshriven.
Strange as it sounds, the thought that I had no soul was the most comfortable notion that I had ever had. It removed the fear of Hell; it lifted all responsibility. I had lived as an animal and I should die like one. Like an old horse or a dog, past all use and a waste to feed any more. All this fuss about marriage, I thought. We coupled like dogs who don’t expect to be chanted over; and as for those eggs … who calls it sin when a starving cat sneaks off with a fish head?
Freed from the fear of Hell I curled up in the straw and made ready to die.
Everything rocked a little, the darkness lifted, the walls melted away and I was lying on the grass under the little crooked hawthorn tree, freshly green and white, just breaking into blossom. I could smell it, cool and full of summer promise.
‘You,’ I cried. And all at once I understood everything. Nothing to do with priests or sins or being forgiven, nothing to do with anything there are any words for. Just the beauty of the tree and my acceptance of it, promise and fulfilment all in one. And what there are no words for.
Now I could die.
All nonsense, of course.
The voices reached me first.
‘Complete misunderstanding. “Hold him safe,” I said. The order was perfectly clear.’
‘A gross mistake indeed; but that can wait. Brother Sebastian …’
‘Hold the light a little closer.’
Hot tallow dripped on my cheek; I opened my eyes and closed them again, the light struck so painfully.
‘Why, this is the man Martin whose leg I mended. Give me the cup.’