by William Peak
I had an unbroken view of the thing. I’m sure of that. No branches, no leaves, intruded upon that vision. And immediately behind the wagon there must have been a corresponding break in the trees, for I remember it seemed to float before moving clouds like an image of itself, at once perfect and improbable, furniture of dream and of nightmare.
I walked up to it.
As if it were a dream, as if I were part of the dream, I walked up to the wagon. I walked up to it and carefully, almost reverentially, I reached out and touched it.
It was real.
I had been playing at driving my imaginary oxen for some time when it happened, when the sound of the wind blowing through the trees abruptly changed, and—as if a signal had been given— the spell was broken. I remembered myself, remembered where I was, what I was doing, whom I had feared. I glanced to the right, the direction my ear told me should concern me, and seeing something, seeing something I did not want to see, immediately looked forward again, tried to pretend there had been nothing there, that I hadn’t seen the figure standing at the edge of the grove. Perhaps if he didn’t know I knew he was there he wouldn’t move too quickly. Perhaps—if I was very fast—there was still time,
I could still escape, get away.
But then it was all too much for me and despite myself, despite what I thought it was, indeed because of what I thought it was, what I most feared, I turned and looked Death in the eye.
And it was Father Gwynedd.
Father Gwynedd was standing just inside the ring of trees— hair, beard, woolens, everything, blown sideways by the wind— eyes alone steady: looking at me.
When we returned to the grove, we brought three brothers and Father Prior with us.
Of course by then I had some understanding of what it was that I had done, what it was that I had trifled with. Father Gwynedd had begun my instruction immediately upon finding me in the grove. The ridge-top wasn’t, he had explained, a Cumbrogi holding at all. The grove and wagon belonged to the hill people, served as a place of worship for them, were, in point of fact, what they worshipped. He had pointed at the wagon then and—rather sternly for him—declared it to be proscribed. “You must treat such sign as you would the bear’s,” he said. “Caution! Danger!”
Later, after we’d come back to the grove, I found myself thinking quite a bit about that warning. At the time it hadn’t bothered me unduly—someone was always pointing out how perilous the world was to oblates. But since then everyone had been behaving so strangely. Weren’t we supposed to seek out pagans? Weren’t we supposed to find them, convert them to the one true Faith? Father Abbot was always sending someone out “to save the hill people,” and here I’d found some for them close-at-hand and you’d have thought I’d told them the world was coming to an end. Brother Swidbert was so scared he trembled constantly, his hood pulled down over his face like a man already dead. He’d gotten ill during the night and, despite the wind, you could hear the sounds he made, like a skin bursting. And Brother Hewald was worse. Except for the office, he never moved, standing with his arms stretched out like the Christ’s, staring down at the distant wood. He’d stood like that during the sickness too, and though I now knew it to be a form of prayer, I still didn’t like it. I didn’t like anything that reminded me of the sickness. And what did it say about our situation that he chose to pray again like this now, here, when everything else seemed otherwise so perfectly ordinary? These were monks. What could be so bad it could scare a monk?
I looked over at Father Prior. Eyes closed, back held rigidly erect, he was kneeling by the wagon as he had been ever since Ter-ce, praying diligently. Behind him, clouds tumbled past the ridge-top like frightened sheep. I thought about this, wondered about the difference between what was going on behind Father and what was going on within him. The way he held his head reminded me a little of the time Waldhere and I had heard something and, peeking through the window at Chapter, seen Father Prior in earnest discussion with our lord abbot. And maybe that was it. Maybe Brother Hewald’s stance, Father Prior’s wrinkled brow, weren’t so much signs of prayer as of discussion, even of argument. Maybe that was why the monks were so afraid, because they knew what they were up against, knew what God was capable of, what He might do to such a heathen place.
And it was at that moment—even as I contemplated the power that sets all things in motion—that the clouds behind Father Prior abruptly froze in place and everything else—wagon, trees, Father Prior, Brother Hewald—began slowly, gracefully, to revolve back around in the opposite direction, back around me.
I shut my eyes.
Of course it was probably the hunger. We’d been fasting for two days now, and when you went that long without food you had to expect this sort of thing to happen. Still a part of me wondered if it might not be more than that. There were those that believed fasting made one susceptible to visions—even Waldhere believed this. Was it possible that what I was seeing, witnessing, was real? Could this be what it would look like, the effect of so much prayer: the grove’s profanity being unwound like a dirty bandage from around the top of this ridge?
Or, worse, might this be preliminary to Whirlwind?
I kept my eyes shut tight, joined my prayer to that of those around me.
Dead leaves rattled in the trees overhead.
A raven called somewhere off in the distance.
But, otherwise, nothing happened.
I opened my eyes. I opened my eyes and, mercifully, everything was as it should be: the circle of oaks had ceased to revolve, Father Dagan knelt where he had been kneeling, and though my forehead felt unusually cool and damp, I felt better. Surely everything was going to be all right.
And it was then, as if God had made a particularly good point in their argument, that an entirely new set of wrinkles appeared on Father Prior’s brow. He looked puzzled, uncertain. He looked worse than that.
I waited.
For a moment or two nothing happened. A finger rubbed another, the upper part of a leg twitched, but, otherwise, nothing. Then—so quickly it frightened me—my lord prior’s eyes flew open and, twisting his head around violently, he cast a wild glance down at the far wood.
Of course I looked that way too but there was nothing to see, neither painted men nor blinding light. I looked back at Father and was surprised to find him looking at me. He smiled. I smiled. Then, embarrassed for him, I assumed custody of the eyes.
Later that afternoon it began to snow. I crawled under the wagon but the monks remained out in the open. The snow came down in big wet flakes that melted as soon as they touched the ground. There was something in the nature of this snow (God’s silence descending upon our own) that dampened all sound. A hill person would have thought the monks mad, that they looked like nothing so much as big dumb statues amid all that swirling snow; but I knew better. I knew that quietly, internally, they were calling down Power onto this place.
Prior Dagan was the first to give up, climb in under the wagon. He settled himself against the inside of a wheel, pulled his hood down over his face and became quite still. After a while I could tell from the sound of his breathing that he had fallen asleep. Which didn’t bother me. The others were still awake and Father deserved his rest: he’d been keeping the long watch ever since he’d learned of the grove. The snow continued to fall, big white flakes drifting down out of an unnaturally flat dark sky.
Brother Swidbert came in next, then Brother Edric. When Brother Hewald gave up and crawled in under the wagon, he looked at me as if I’d done something wrong. I looked away.
The afternoon wore on, our tiny shelter growing close, the stink of damp woolens and someone’s fasting breath. At some point I must have drifted off because I seemed to be on another ridge, long ago, when someone jostled me and I opened my eyes. Brother Hewald had changed positions. He was looking at Brother Edric. Brother Edric nodded and then glanced out at the open ground. He shook his head.
I looked out that way too but could see nothing wrong. The snow h
ad changed—the big feathery flakes gone now, replaced by a snow that was coming down so fast it made a sort of hissing sound as it fell. Around the grove, in the lee of rocks and trees, the snow was accumulating in little piles that looked like spills of salt. Otherwise though, everything remained as it had been: the ground dark, the air white and moving, the hermit gray. I looked back at Brother Hewald and was a little frightened to find him looking at me. He shook his head to keep me from looking down, then— eyes insisting I pay attention—he lifted his chin toward the open area out in front of the wagon.
I looked out that way again but still could see nothing wrong.
Hewald’s jaw muscles knotted.
I cocked my head: Sir?
Brother Hewald crossed himself, glanced once at the sleeping Dagan, then, in a whisper loud enough for everyone to hear, said, “Your master! Have you no shame?”
“Sir?”
“Take something and cover him up!”
Hot tears filled my eyes. I pulled my hood down over my face and held it there. Someone shoved a blanket under my chin and for the briefest of moments I thought it was meant for me. Then I remembered myself. Holding the blanket against my chest, I crawled out from under the wagon and stood up. For a moment I let the snow sting my face, each icy missile welcome, a blessing.
Then I hurried across to the hermit.
Father was sitting with his back to the wagon as he had been since None. Earlier such a position might have afforded him some advantage, but since it had begun to snow the wind had changed direction. Fearful the dripping tonsure and beard might really bring on some life-threatening illness, I raised my blanket, intending to drape it over the old man’s head and shoulders. Then I remembered. The last time I had touched the hermit when he was praying, he had told me I must never do anything like that again. Admittedly I had touched him with a firebrand on that occasion but, still, he had been emphatic.
I glanced back at the figures resting under the wagon and held up my blanket: I hate to disturb him. A pair of hands—white against the shadows—gestured impatiently.
I looked back down at Father Gwynedd. Water dripped from the tip of his nose; an icy froth was developing on the whiskers around his mouth. Then I noticed the dry place. Though elsewhere snow was pelting Father at will, the right side of his face—the side
I was blocking from the wind—looked dryer. I moved to my left and the effect increased: fewer flakes struck the hermit. If I raised my blanket....
I held it out behind me like a sail and, like a sail, it caught the wind and blew flat against my back, my body and the blanket blocking both wind and snow. If he was conscious of the real world at all, Father must have thought it had stopped snowing.
I spread my legs and assumed a more comfortable stance, rather pleased with myself. Now, instead of returning to the wagon, I would have to remain out here on the open ground. Like Father Hermit, I would brave wind and snow, do my part to help the grownups cleanse this place of evil. It was a nice thought. It made me happy. I hoped Father Prior would wake up soon so he could see what I was doing.
For a long time I stood as I had imagined I would stand. My arms grew tired, my heart beat in my fingertips, but I did not falter. The brothers under the wagon knew I was there even if Father Gwynedd didn’t. A part of me wondered what Father did know.
Usually, when one of the monks underwent a mortification, you could tell they were suffering. It showed in their faces and, sometimes, in the way they behaved. But the hermit was different. Despite the fact his woolens were encrusted with rime, his tonsure dripping, he looked, well, if not happy certainly content, a man sitting by his fire thinking about something, pondering. And maybe that was it. Maybe he was. Who knew where Father Hermit went when he prayed. Did it snow in the Holy Land? Did the wind blow in Heaven?
A crystal of snow landed on the upper part of Father’s ear, melted and, following the curve of the ear, ran down to the tip of the lobe from which it then hung, refusing to drop. I shivered and found that the motion relieved some of the pain in my right arm. When I turned my head to stretch in that direction, I saw that the snow had picked up again, the flakes coming down so fast they looked more like needles than snow. As I was noticing this, thinking this, the ground (like a piece of cloth rising toward the hand that stitches it) rose into the sky.
I looked down, forced myself to concentrate on the hermit, concentrate on holding my blanket just so. It helped. The ground grew firm beneath my feet, the earth ceased to levitate, and, slowly, my knees began to relax. I closed my eyes and thought about the hermit. In my mind I saw him flying, like St. Peter, around the tower of our ridge, a gray man flying wingless through a gray sky.
When I opened my eyes, it was to find the hermit looking at me.
“Winwæd?” he said.
Father followed my glance over at the wagon. When I looked back at him, he was smiling. “Well,” he said, “at least you can sit under the blanket with me.”
“Sir?”
Gently, Father pulled me down onto the ground beside him. He took my blanket from me, shook it out, and then, with a flourish, draped it over our heads. From the wagon we must have looked a little like Modra nect, the back of my head representing the mountain’s lower, southern peak.
For a long time we sat like that. Perhaps it was the fast, perhaps the enchantment of falling snow, but, for once in my life, I felt no desire to speak or fidget; I lay quietly against Father’s side, smelling the smell of old fires in his woolens and enjoying the tinkling sound the snow made on the blanket he held over our heads. After a while I grew drowsy. When I spoke, it surprised me as much as it must have the hermit. “What do you see, Father? When you pray I mean, what do you see out there?”
Though my eyes were closed, I could hear the smile in the voice that answered me. “Well,” said Father Hermit, “if I’m lucky, I see nothing at all.”
We still have the wagon. It’s the one Father Cyneberht uses to haul manure. We had to play the part of oxen to get it down the mountain, but it would have been a shame to leave the thing behind. It was a perfectly good wagon.
XV
The furnace path was different in those days—darker, wetter, more mysterious. A species of bird called back there then that called nowhere else, its song fey, haunted, ethereal. Nonsense of course, the birds that sing now are the same as those that sang then; the valley above the monastery remains just as dark and dank. Still, memory insists it was different. Waldhere and I used to lie on our bellies at the entrance to the path and make up stories about what went on up there, the mill and its creaking wheel, the foreigner, Victricius, and all his works. We knew the place was important. When the man from the bishop was expected, the hours themselves seem to slow in anticipation of his arrival: Chapter was lengthened, prayers said, the food got better. But it wasn’t the iron that interested us, it was the path itself, the fact that it was forbidden, that it lay there open and inviting at the very edge of our realm; and we could not go there. No matter how much we might want it otherwise, the furnace path was one place that would, we knew, remain forever out-of-bounds.
And then one day late in Lent, a third of the way through what had been up until that time a perfectly ordinary year, Father Prior asked me to walk with him there.
It was morning I remember, Prime having just come to an end—Father pulling me from the back of what was in those days not a particularly long procession. He didn’t speak, just took me by the shoulder and, gently, pulled me from the line. When he pointed at the furnace path, indicated I should accompany him there, I tossed a quick glance at Waldhere and was pleased to find him looking back over his shoulder at us, clearly wishing he were me.
In truth we didn’t go far, just far enough to be out of earshot of the cloister, but where we stopped was interesting enough. As with the west walk, the furnace path marks both walkway and watercourse, its flagstones roofing and concealing our abbey race (here too one feels the gentle thrumming through the soles of one’s feet). B
ut the furnace path is different as well, for the monks who dug the race were forced by the steepness of the upper valley to cut their channel directly from the side of the mountain. On one side of the path where Father Prior and I stopped, a sort of manmade cliff rises dripping and lichen-covered to half again the height of a man, while, on the other, the ground falls away dramatically toward the Meolch. The air would have been full that day, as it was every day, of the scents of hemlock and pine; the river, at full spate, deafening.
Father said something.
I cupped my ear.
He spoke again, louder. “You know how much we care for you.”
I nodded. This was going to be bad.
“Good. It is our duty to love our brothers, but Christ has placed an especial obligation upon us to love children. For some this may be easy, for others it is a great cross to bear. You understand?”
Of course, he was talking about Brother Baldwin. I nodded.
“Good. Well, I wanted to make sure you understood this, that we love you, that we will always take care of you.”
I smiled but I was beginning to worry. Once before, when we were all very little, Baldwin had tried to get rid of the oblates. I remembered it only as a time of loud words and unhappiness, but Dudda had told me, if it hadn’t been for Father Prior, we all would have been placed at the far end of the abbey path.
Father must not have liked what he saw on my face. “Really,” he said, “we do care about you. I care about you.”
Again I nodded.
Father looked at me for a moment, then shook his head as if changing his mind about something. “It’s your father,” he said, “your father Ceolwulf is here.”