by William Peak
I don’t really remember the viaticum. Waldhere says I was awake, but I don’t remember it. I do remember the monks. At the end, in my memory, Oftfor floats on a cloud of upturned faces, the entire community come to kneel by his bed. I also remember the light. Of course that’s impossible. Oftfor’s bed lay along the north wall, mine along the south, so I must have dreamt that, imagined that. Still, in my memory, the windows are open and there is a little
light coming through the one over Oftfor’s bed.
For a long time nothing happened; then there was the suggestion of a movement, as if all the monks closest to Oftfor had, in unison, taken a breath of air. Father Prior stood up. He leaned over the bed and, like a man who has dropped a stone to judge the depth of a well, he placed his ear over Oftfor’s mouth and listened. After a moment or two, he pulled back, looked over at Father Abbot, nodded. Father Abbot pursed his lips in that way he had, looked back at Oftfor. The boy’s forehead was smooth now, untroubled, his eyes focused on something distant. Father Prior leaned forward again. He kissed Oftfor and immediately, as if a flock of birds had broken into the hall, the air of the dortoir was filled with the sound of wings. We all looked up but it was too late; Oftfor was gone.
VII
Nowadays everyone knows Oftfor’s story, how he saw heaven and predicted the future. We hear such tales all the time and accept them without thinking about them, though it’s not like that when the story itself takes place. When everyone told me I was going to live, that the little saint had said I would recover, I wanted to believe them. I wanted to believe them very much; but I didn’t. Not in my heart. I knew Oftfor; he was no saint: he was the little boy who slept across from me, the one who liked to play with dead animals, the one who once stole a piece of bread.
But of course I was wrong to think that way. Oftfor was a saint, must have been, for we did recover. All those infected but still living at the time of his death regained their strength; however haltingly, we returned to our duties, our lives, the Rule. I can still
remember the first time I was able to get up, go to the reredorter by myself, what it felt like to sit in that place and look out the window, watch a breeze move across the southern slope of Modra nect. At the time even so simple a thing as the way the trees turned and changed in the path of that breeze, going from dark to light and then back to dark again, struck me as remarkable.
We buried a little over half our community that year. All the able-bodied were needed to save what could be saved of the harvest, so we oblates had to help the older monks dig the graves. We didn’t have time to sew up the hoods. We carried the bodies out one by one and buried them on the garth. Their names were:
Oslac, an old man.
Fursa, who had been cellarer under Abbot Folian.
Ælfwine, who sang well.
Hlothberht, who had charge of Redestone’s oxen.
Cuthwine, priest and cellarer.
Cerdic, who had changed his name.
Wihtred, who snored.
Rædwald, who had a special devotion to the Blessed Mother. Guthere, who was lame.
Eadbald, who had charge of Redestone’s kitchens.
Osberht, said to have been among those baptized by St. Pauli nus at the River Glen.
Byrhtnoth, a priest.
Eatta, another priest.
Ceolwulf, who carried my father’s name.
Leofgar, who suffered from earaches.
Ælfhelm, poet and servant to Gwynedd.
Hrothweard, who had a scar.
Wulfred, whose name alone is now recalled.
Wiglaf, who was a Mercian.
Plegmund, whose spear and shield are buried in the abbey or chard.
Eadnoth, who slept in the bed next but one to mine.
Beornred, whom no one knew was ill.
Torhtmund, who was Sigeberht’s brother.
Dudda, who liked pancakes.
Sigeberht, the first to die.
Ceawlin, who had only just entered the monastery.
Oftfor.
I do not know the names of the people who died in the village but there were many. Father Cuthwine watched over them until he too became ill. After that, some probably died without a priest. There were so many dying then and there were not enough priests.
That year, for lack of able-bodied men, most of our crop rotted in the field.
VIII
The abbot’s lodge. The name alone signifies. Yet I who saw that building’s construction may now live long enough to see its name, possibly even the building itself, fall into disuse! Should Father Abbot actually follow through with his plans, move permanently into the dortoir with the rest of us, what do you suppose will become of it? Guesthouse, granary, storeroom, shed—it can never be the same. Still, so long as we live, we who remember what a summons thence could mean, memory must lodge there if nothing else...the dark, the cold, the fear, the smell.
The smell.
I knew what that was.
But I didn’t want to think about that.
I hugged myself. It was cold in here, colder than any of the
other buildings. Where Father Abbot came from the Rule didn’t permit fires except for cooking; monks in that land were stronger than us, tougher. Father Abbot probably didn’t even need a fire. Which was why they stored the woolens in here, and the vestments, and, sometimes, a portion of the harvest, because it was cooler in the abbot’s lodge, drier, because things were less liable to rot.
Which made me remember despite myself. I wondered if the smell would persist. Come the haying, when they handed out the fresh woolens, would the brothers remark upon it? Would they remember what had been stored here?
A noise as of teeth being ripped from their sockets and my heart skipped.
It was Father Dagan, hand still holding the curtain aside, eyes wide, questioning.
But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask if he’d frightened me. He looked at me, nodded once, and then, pressing the curtain further aside, the noise insignificant now, a commonplace, he
indicated I should enter.
I stepped through, covered my eyes.
The figure of the abbot stood before an open window, light pouring in around it like cold air.
I knelt down and the floor was hard and cold but I could see better. No one said anything. The abbot’s feet were flat and the spaces between his toes too wide. I wondered if the furnace master (who was from the same country as Father Abbot) had feet this flat, toes spread this wide.
“Do you know why you are here?”
I nodded. Ealhmund had started it, but there was no point in making excuses now.
Father Abbot said something I had trouble understanding for he spoke in the Roman tongue; but, thankfully, Father Prior replied in our own. “Winwæd,” he said, “has no idea why he is here.” You could tell from the way he said it that he was talking to me as much as to Father Abbot.
Father Abbot’s attention returned to me. “You are called Winwaed,”
He didn’t pronounce it right but I nodded anyway.
“A peculiar name.”
I assumed custody of the eyes.
“Were you there yesterday?”
I nodded. The beggars, he meant the beggars.
“Someday they may not go so easily.”
The beggars had appeared toward the end of winter. At first they’d seemed more spirits than men, hanging about the edge of the wood, shifting in and out among the trees. Then the villagers began to complain of them: a scythe went missing, a basket full of eggs. Yesterday, for the first time, they’d invaded the abbey precincts. By the time we oblates had gotten there most of the excitement was over, but you could still tell what had happened. A dun-colored spray of grain lay fanned out on the ground, one of Botulf’s pits open beside it, broken bits of seal scattered all around. A group of beggars stood by the gate, empty-handed, eyeing the grain. A slightly larger group of monks stood between them and the pit. You couldn’t really hear what the beggars said when they spoke to
one another, but you couldn’t miss what they said to the monks. Of course the monks paid them no heed. They were monks. They kept the silence. After a while the beggars simply gave up and went away.
“But of course you know about Ælfhelm.”
I blinked, remembered myself, nodded emphatically.
“You helped with the digging didn’t you?”
Again I nodded, trying to look like someone who’d been paying attention, wondering how Father had gotten onto this subject, wondering if he too was bothered by the smell.
“Well at first we thought they both were dead. When Ælfhelm didn’t come back, it was.... Well it was only natural, wasn’t it, what with so many dying? But Brother Tatwine surprised us.” Father Abbot looked at me. “They brought only the one body down. Father Gwynedd’s still alive.”
I smiled for Father Abbot—who clearly thought I should be pleased with this information—while casting a desperate glance up at Father Dagan: Father Gwynedd?
Father Dagan frowned. “Have you been listening, Winwæd?”
I nodded but my lord prior didn’t care. “Father Abbot,” he said, “you asked for someone dependable, a boy who would listen and do as he was told. Forgive me, I have failed.”
I lay down on my face before Abbot Agatho and then, for a while, no one said anything.
It was Father Abbot who finally broke the silence. In the voice he used when someone coughed in choir, Father asked, “Is he always so...so inattentive?”
“Occasionally,” said Father Dagan. “It’s been worse lately.”
“Hunger.”
“Yes. Yes, probably.”
“Well I can’t spare Tatwine anymore. I need him every day now.”
Father Prior didn’t say anything.
“How about one of the others? What’s the tall one’s name...
Wulfhere?”
“Waldhere, but I think Winwæd would be best. If he’ll listen.”
Nose flat against the floor, I smiled.
There was a sound as if someone had sat down and then Father Abbot said, “Well, I don’t know...it probably doesn’t matter that much either way.”
Father Prior must have nodded because I didn’t hear him say anything.
“Winwæd,” said the abbot.
I tried to indicate attentiveness with my back.
“Stand up and look at me when I’m talking to you.”
I looked. It was Father Abbot who had moved. He was sitting on the bed now.
“Go ahead,” he said, nodding. “You have permission.”
I stood up.
“Now look at me. I told you I wanted you to look at me.”
I looked. Father’s eyes were blue.
“Good. That’s good. Now, will you listen to me?”
I nodded, Yes.
“Your life and the life of everyone in this monastery may depend upon it. Do you understand?”
Everyone.
“Fine. Now you tell him Father Prior, I’m tired of your ridiculous language.”
Father Dagan smiled as if Father Abbot had said something amusing. He turned, looked out the window, eyes losing their color to the light. “What I’m going to tell you about took place a long time ago. Before you were born, before this building was built, before Father Abbot even came to Redestone....” Father stopped, looked back at me—eyes brown again, bright, commanding. “You must understand, this was a different place then. Different. It was Father Abbot who built the Redestone we know—the terrace, the refectory, the dortoir. But there was a time before you were born, before Father Abbot, when these things weren’t here. In those days there was only the church and even it was smaller. Of course it looked big. I mean from down in the fields it looked big. Because of the ridge. In those days a ridge extended out from the base of the mountain a little way into the fields and our church sat up on its lower end. So it could look big. From down in the village it looked quite large. But it wasn’t. Not really. Just a simple structure built of sticks and mud. We monks lived in a cave at the base of the ridge.”
Father looked back out the window as if expecting to see the cave, that long-ago time. “Of course it’s gone now, the ridge I mean, buried, like Oslac and Cuthwine, beneath our garth. Seven times we climbed that ridge, seven times we climbed back down; every day: year-in, year-out. No dortoir, no refectory, no necessarium.... It’s hard to believe now. But we weren't barbarians.” He looked at me. “You mustn’t think we were barbarians.”
I didn’t.
“We were monks. Monks. Life was hard but we kept our rule: we worked, we prayed. Every day. And on the sabbath we received our Lord. Those were good men back then, good men. We just didn’t have Father Agatho yet, that’s all.”
I nodded and Father Abbot nodded with me. I had no idea what Father Dagan was talking about.
“Then Penda came.” Father’s voice grew soft. “Have you heard of Penda? Did your mother frighten you with tales of Penda?”
The suggestion of a fragrance, like flowers, and a face, like the Virgin’s. I shook my head. No, no I couldn’t remember any stories.
“Well she should have. Penda was a Mercian and a pagan, the cruelest, most wicked pagan of them all, and he joined forces with the Cumbrogi—not much better—to destroy our land. Many a morning we awakened to smoke on the horizon and, once, women and children spilling from the South Wood like frightened deer. Folian was abbot in those days, and Folian was afraid of Penda. He asked one of his monks, a man called Gwynedd, to climb Modra nect, keep watch from Dacca’s crag. You know the crag?”
I nodded, amazed to discover there had been an abbot before Father Abbot.
“Yes, good. But it’s different now. In those days it was an evil place, covered with runes and depictions of vile practices. Father Gwynedd was afraid of it. But he was a good monk. He climbed to Dacca’s crag because his abbot told him to; but he was afraid.” Father looked at me. “You know, when you leave the cloister you are entirely on your own. No one keeps you safe; no one cares about you; you have no friends. The monks here at Redestone are more than teachers and masters, Winwæd, we are your family. But out there....” Father’s eyes grew pale again as he looked toward the window. “Well.... And of course it was worse in those days, pagans everywhere, fighting, killing. Not that it’s much better now. Father’s right to send out his priests; the hill people remain a proud and stubborn race. But in those days they were also bold; we sometimes found dogs hanging from the rafters in our church, mare’s blood upon the door. Gwynedd’s fear was justified. Not only had the abbot sent him to live by himself in a forest full of heathen, but he had sent him to live upon one of their holiest sites, to sleep, eat, and relieve himself upon its ground. The first nights he must have had no rest at all. I remember, when the wind blew right, you could hear him up there, chanting, praying, beseeching God to protect him. It made everyone uneasy. All of us. Knowing he was up there, a goat staked out for wolves. But then a day came when we realized that, with or without the wind, we had not heard Gwynedd for some time. Of course we knew what had happened; something had killed him—pagan or wild animal, it made little difference, the result would be the same. So Abbot Folian sent a party up to retrieve the body. But the brothers came back empty-handed. Nothing was wrong, they said, Gwynedd was still alive. He had received them properly—washed their feet, begged for their prayers—but he had seemed just as pleased—content even—when they left. Very strange.” Father paused to think about this. He shook his head. “Of course no one knew what it meant. Then, well, time passed, and, after a while, it became obvious Penda wasn’t going to attack us that year. We’ve always been isolated up here, and there was no furnace then, no reason for him to take an interest in us.” Father Dagan stopped, glanced over at Father Abbot to make sure it was all right for him to continue. But Father Abbot wasn’t looking at Father Dagan just then, he was looking at the floor.
For a moment no one said anything. From the window came the sound of someone chopping wood. Then, as if Father Abb
ot had said it was all right, Father Dagan went on. “But I think it was more than our isolation that saved us; I think it was prayer. Prayer protected us then, and it will protect us now.”
Father Abbot nodded at the floor. In church he sometimes called prayer “our buckler and shield.”
Father Prior went on. “So, once it became obvious that Redestone was safe, Father Gwynedd came back down to the monastery. Of course everyone was glad to see him—as we are glad to see any brother after a long absence—and Gwynedd was glad to see us. But, after a while, another strange thing happened. Father Gwynedd began to miss Dacca’s crag. I know it sounds incredible, to think that anyone could miss so wild and desolate a place, but Father did. And when we asked him why, he said that it was because it was wild and desolate.”
Again Father stopped, seemed to give thought to what he had said. “You know he never even lit a fire. Of course in part this was because fire was the signal he had agreed upon with Folian, but he was afraid too. Who knew what fire might attract? Kinsman or not, the Cumbrogi would have made a meal of him. And in those days our side of the mountain was just as bad as the other. But Father liked it. Or at least he missed it. The loneliness, the lack of companionship. For the first time in his life he had placed his trust entirely in God. Entirely in God. There was no one else. No friend, no brother. But he said that was good for him, the poverty, that it forced him to abandon all attachments, to turn his face toward his Maker alone.”
Father Dagan paused, shook his head. “Lying on the ground at night, afraid to sleep, afraid to even close your eyes; every sound a footfall, every noise the approach of...something. And so alone.” Father looked at me. “If you cried out when they came for you they would find that amusing, entertaining, a proof of weakness. But otherwise there would be no one. No one to hold your hand. No one to kiss you good-bye. We all must die of course, but to die alone, unloved.... Well, we all thought him mad. And he looked terrible—skeletal, sun-burned, his tonsure grown in. But he said he wanted to return. He said he wanted nothing more in life than to leave it, to be left, like Isaac, on the mountaintop, alone with God.”