by William Peak
Truth be told, I don’t know what I had expected to find there. Redestone entirely gone? The valley flooded perhaps or afire, an enemy host encamped upon our fields? Who knows what childish fantasies my mind had invented to explain Brother’s absence? But surely nothing could have been less expected (or more disappointing?) than that which did greet my eyes, Redestone sitting quiet and peaceful beneath an overarching sky, no writhing, no blushes, just the familiar intimate cluster of red-brown buildings,
green garth, surrounding fields. Why even God Himself seemed to smile upon the place, not a cloud in sight after all that rain.
And then I saw Father.
Thinking back on it now I realize he must have waited for just that moment, must have stood waiting for who knows how long beneath the eaves so that, when he saw me walk out onto the crag (as he must have known I would), he could step out into the sunlight of the garth and be certain his emergence would catch my eye. As of course it did. The man appeared (immediately recognizable in figure and gait as Father Dagan), moved purposefully to the center of the garth, and then—in a movement that sent a chill up my spine—cocked his head back and looked directly at the place where I stood. After all those years spent spying on the valley, someone had finally returned my gaze.
At first he did nothing. For what seemed a long while but in truth could not have been more than a moment or two, the two of us just stared across the distance separating us, our roles in a sense reversed, the one on high meek and trembling, the one below awful and mighty. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if it were the reason he’d gone out there, stood at the center of the garth, Father raised his hand, raised his hand and shook it in the air like a man trying to shake water from his fingers. And as if there really had been water on his fingers, something glinted in the air, something caught the light, glinted in the air just beyond Father’s outstretched hand. And I saw what it was.
But my mind rejected that.
My mind rejected that, began immediately to turn the thing Father brandished into something else, a pot perhaps or a lamp or maybe even (could it have been?) the distended and glistening stomach of a lamb. But then Father swung the thing again and I could no longer fool myself. The censer. Yes, yes of course it was. Which could mean only one thing. On only one other occasion had I seen them cense the garth, cense, for that matter, anything outside the church. They did it to ward off evil, to replace an evil air with that which was good, pure, holy. And instantly I knew why Brother Edgar hadn’t come, why, doubtless, Brother wouldn’t be
coming again for some time, would, perhaps, never come again. The pestilence was among us. Father Dagan was censing the garth which meant—could only mean—one thing: the pestilence was among as again.
XXXVIII
It was a slow walk I made that day back up to the hermit’s camp. There was so much to be done, and, so far as I could see, almost no way to do any of it. Father’s message had, of course, been unequivocal. After making a show of censing the garth, he had pointed up at me and then, emphatically, displayed the palm of his hand. Knowing how susceptible I was to the disease, Father was ordering me to remain upon the mountain, hoping thereby to keep me above contagion’s reach. But what Father didn’t know, couldn’t know, was that I was the cause of this illness, that if I could but descend, confess my sin, reverse the course of my prayer, Redestone might be saved. But how could I descend? If I went down now, who would care for Father? And once my crime had been revealed, once I had been expelled from the abbey,
forgotten, what were the chances anyone would be sent back up the mountain to replace me? Prior Maban hadn’t wished to send someone when the community was healthy and Redestone comparatively well manned. How would he feel now when any brother still fit must seem indispensable? No, no I could not fool myself. If I went down now, Father would die. Father would die alone and confused and afraid.
Unless, of course, I came back.
The thought, at first, struck me, naturally enough, as absurd. I mean I would be anathema, an excommunicate, someone all good people shunned, a rim-walker, an outcast, the mark of Cain upon my head. But, then again, given that status, who was going to bother with me? I would be—in a very real sense and for the first time in my life—free, free to do whatever I wanted, go wherever I wanted. And where of course I would want to go would be to the hermit. Forget the Rule, forget the Rule and forget Redestone; I would be able to climb back up the mountain and save Father, save and care for him for the rest of his life!
The rest of his life.
For that, of course, was what I had forgotten, what I had forgotten and now recalled. Behind me, back down the path I now trod, below the crag, below all that belonged to this mountain world, lay the valley, and in that valley lay disease. If I descended and then came back up, who was to say what I might not bring with me? Instead of saving the hermit I might be killing him, might be guaranteeing him a death I had witnessed too many times, a death I would not wish on my greatest enemy. Oh if only I’d never heard of Wilfrid, if only I’d never prayed those prayers, if only there was some way I could undo what I had done without having to go back down the mountain!
And it was then—as if I were a child again in the heat of the peas, the mountain clear and beckoning above me—that my thoughts rose to the hermit, rose as of old to the man who waited for me at the end of this path. Was it possible? Could he save me? And despite myself, despite the ban I had placed on all such thoughts, I remembered my first morning back on the mountain,
what it had been like to wake up like that, to find the Host already raised, Father’s face contorted, struggling to remember the words, the exact words, and then the look of relief that washed over him when he realized he was not alone, a look of relief that changed quickly into something else, a sly, almost mischievous invitation, the child enticing his father, cajoling him to help with a chore that by rights was the child’s alone, Father asking for my help, pleading with his eyes that I make it better, fix this problem, this familiar thing we both knew and only he seemed to have forgotten the words for. And it was, I believe, as I was thinking this, remembering that wretched moment, that I knew, knew for certain: / could have helped him.
Though of course I hadn’t. I mean, after all, it was the Mass— Father’s face crestfallen when I took the vessels from him. But I could have. I mean I did know the words, had heard them who knows how many times before. And if that were possible, if I could have walked him through the Mass—the introit, the offertory, the great Amen—well, how much easier still the shorter rite of
confession?
Of course Brother Baldwin wouldn’t approve, and certainly not Brother Prior, but what harm could there be in it? If the phrases were the same, if they got said, what did it matter if someone prompted the priest, reminded him of what needed to be said next, needed to be done? So long as Father actually said them, even if only parroting me, he was saying the words, a priest was saying them; and I would respond from the depths of my heart, my contrition real, genuine, true. How many times had we been taught that the priest was only a channel for God’s love, God’s forgiveness? And so he would be in this case. I would be his servant, nothing more, acting as his memory when needed. Even if you tried to claim the sanctity of the confessional had been violated, there being, in a sense, three people present—penitent, priest, and servant—I could claim it remained whole as both penitent and servant existed in the one person—me—just as, in a sense, Christ and man existed in the priest. Yes. Yes, the more I thought about it, the more reasonable it became. With Father
supplying the holiness and I the words, together we might approximate one halfway decent priest. An inattentive priest perhaps, but what did that matter? How many times had I (and how many others?) hurried to Father Beorhtfrith’s confessional for just that reason, knowing full well that any sin dropped down that well would sink forever unnoticed beneath Father’s blissful self-regard? And besides, this was an emergency. Redestone stood in dan
ger of destruction, and I—and I alone—held the power to save her.
Doubtless I ran that last little stretch up to the hermit’s camp. I’m not sure, I have no memory of it, but I can imagine myself doing so, happy, exultant, sure of my course now, anxious to get on with it. And then the inevitable disillusionment: the old man awake when I got there (always a bad sign) and clearly distracted, looking for something. I glanced over at the camp’s stores but, thankfully, could see no evidence of the usual fumbling depredations. Then he noticed me, Father noticed me, turned what I had come to think of as his oblate face upon me, the one that gave nothing away, that appeared neither too friendly (in case I was a stranger) nor too shocked (in case I was his son). He looked at me. He didn’t say anything. He smiled a careful smile.
I said, “Are you hungry Father?” reminding him of both his position and mine, that I was the purveyor of food.
The smile grew large, real; the old man blinked, seemed to think about it. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, you know I think I am.”
I smiled. “Maybe you’d like some biscuits and honey?”
The smile extended to the cheeks, threatened to overwhelm Father’s face. “Biscuits and honey!” he said, the phrase itself a superlative.
I nodded. “But first we have to do something. First you have to hear my confession.”
“Your confession?!” Father said the word as if I’d suggested something obscene.
“Yes, my confession. You’re a priest and I need someone to hear my confession.”
“Well, yes, of course....” Father adopted a thoughtful air, the wise man pondering a particularly thorny problem. “But...well, you
know, it’s been a long time. I’m not sure....”
“I’ll help you.”
Father looked at me as if he’d forgotten I was there. “Are you a priest?” he asked.
“No,” I answered, trying to keep the feeling out of my voice. “I’m not a priest, but I know the words. I can help.”
Father blinked, “Oh, well, that would be nice. A confession.” Again the word sounded strange on his tongue.
“Yes. A confession.”
“Well where would we do it?”
“Here. Now”
“Now!” Father tossed a frightened glance at the surrounding wood.
“It’ll be all right.” I reached out, touched him on the arm, and immediately it was as if some power had gone out of me: Father’s shoulders relaxed; he looked up at me, smiled. “Well, all right,” he said, “if you think it’ll be all right.”
“I do,” I said, never having felt less sure of anything in my life.
Father nodded. “Here?” he asked again, this time perfectly trusting, more than willing to sit down wherever I suggested and do whatever it was I wanted him to do.
“Let’s move down by the stream,” I said, “you know, where we used to do it...”—my voice breaking on this last, the distance between the real and the remembered suddenly clear, manifest.
Father just looked at me, no more cognizant of my feelings than he was of my name. I took him by the hand and led him down to the stream, my eyes brimming uselessly.
That was, by any lights I suppose, a strange confession, halting, broken, following the prescribed order but only just. We began, as I remember it, with the usual exchanges, the ritual request, the ritual declaration, Father nodding absently all the while, watching the stream, so that I couldn’t tell if he was really listening to
my voice or only lulled by it, eyes glazed, red-rimmed, lids drooping. I think I must have passed over the customary list of minor offenses—the initial offerings with which we propitiate our God, toughen Him for what is to come—for the next thing I remember clearly is the way Father jumped, roused himself from stupor. “What?!” he demanded. “What did you say you did?”
“I said I prayed for the destruction of our bishop.”
“You didn’t!”
I had to look away, pretend to study something downstream, all the while telling myself I’d been mistaken, that I hadn’t heard it, hadn’t detected the note of glee in Father’s voice, the fishwife exclaiming over a particularly choice bit of gossip. “Yes Father,” I said, still not looking at him, “that is what I did. I prayed for the destruction of our bishop.”
Nothing, silence.
I looked back around at the hermit only to discover that he was now staring off up-stream as if expecting something, a boat perhaps.
“Did you hear me?”
The hermit’s head swung around turtle-like. “Were you...? I’m sorry,” he said. “Did you say something?”
“My confession. You’re hearing my confession, Father.”
“Oh yes, of course.” Father nodded, assumed a neutral air.
“I was telling you I had prayed against Bishop Wilfrid, prayed that he might die.”
Father’s face became serious. “You prayed against someone?” “Yes Father, our bishop.”
“Oh, that’s bad, very bad.”
“Yes I know; I am sorry Father.”
The old man lowered his gaze, noticed something on his knee, a patch, fingered it, managed to pull a stitch loose.
“Father?”
Again the questioning eyes, the innocent look, the face somehow smaller than I remembered it, reduced, contracted, a face caving in on itself, collapsing beneath the weight of years.
“You were hearing my confession. I was telling you that I had
committed a grave sin, that I have prayed for the death of Bishop Wilfrid”
“You prayed for someone’s death!?”—the information news to Father all over again, a cause for shock this time, perturbation.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“But why would you do that? Why would anyone do something so dangerous, so...so....”
“Foolhardy?”
Father smiled. “Yes! So foolhardy. Why would you.... I’m sorry, what were we talking about?”
This was impossible—Father’s debility becoming in and of itself a penance, forcing me to confess my sin over and over again, relive the shame, the guilt, without any hope of resolution. “We’ve been over all this before,” I said. “This is my confession. You’re hearing my confession. And you’ve just asked why I was so stupid as to pray for the death of our bishop.”
“Oh, yes...”—Father’s look of sobriety a sham, his lower lip quivering, giving him away.
I shook my head. “It was for my father, for Ceolwulf. He asked me to do it.”
“Your father asked you to do something?”
“Yes, no.” Again I shook my head. “No, that’s not right, it was for me. I did it for me, because I was angry. Because I didn’t like Abbot Godwin, didn’t like what he’d done to me.”
“The abbot did something to you?” Father was appalled.
I smiled. It was a little smile, meaning something quite different from what Father thought, but he took it seriously. He smiled. I shook my head. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, he took away my right to come here, to visit you.”
“You don’t mean it!” Father making conversation now, inserting an exclamation where his mind told him exclamation was required.
“Yes, Abbot Godwin took away my right to.... He assigned the task of supplying you to Brother Edgar. That’s when Brother Edgar began coming here.”
“Brother Edgar?”
“Yes, you remem.... It doesn’t matter. I wanted to come here. I missed you, I missed this place.”
“And I missed you too!” the old man serious now, the part of him that remained Father Hermit flaring up, recognizing a need in me and responding to it whether or not he knew my name, had any idea who I was.
I smiled.
Father smiled. He’d already forgotten what had led to these expressions but he liked smiling, always had. It was remarkable really. You could destroy the man’s body, ruin his mind, and still the holiness endured, still it glowed from within him, alive, pure, inextinguishable. I suppose I should have taken off my sandals and covered my hea
d in its presence. I suppose I should have knelt down before it, worshipped at its feet. Instead, stubbornly, I went on.
“My penance,” I said, as if nothing had happened. “You need to give me a penance, Father.”
And the light went out. Leaning out over the stream, trying to get a better look at me, eyes cloudy with years, the smile vanished from Father’s face, disappeared, was as quickly replaced by something else—the blinking eyes, the trembling lip, the shaking head of old and vacuous age.
“You’ve heard my confession and now you have to give me a penance,” I said, trying to hurry him along, embarrassed now by what sat before me, the part I had played in its creation. “You know, a penance, something I can do to atone for my sin.”
“A penance.” Father nodded. “Yes, of course, a penance.”
I waited.
The old man didn’t say anything.
“Father?”
“You know I think I’m getting hungry.” He glanced up at the sky. “Isn’t it about time to eat?”
I shook my head. “In a moment Father, first we have to finish this. Remember, you’re hearing my confession? I’ve just confessed that I prayed for Bishop Wilfrid’s death and now you’re go-ing to give me a penance.”
“Say a Pater Noster and be mindful of the phrase Thy Kingdom come’” Father blinked, looked at me, clearly as surprised as I by the ease with which this chestnut had sprung from him. It happened sometimes; if you poked and prodded hard enough, the coals of Father’s mind would produce a little light.
“But Father,” I protested, “a Pater Noster...? I mean I prayed for someone’sdeath, the death of my rightful superior. I need more than a mere Pater Noster, give me something really hard to do.”