by Joni Sensel
Then, late that afternoon, he spotted pale, feminine fingers draped out of a narrow slot in a stone wall facing the rose garden. She’d been locked in a penitent’s cell, the same one where Aidan once had been instructed to pray about numbers and 666. Her fingers reached and dawdled in the ventilation gap as if they, at least, would be free in the waning sunlight.
Fortunately for Aidan, the abbey’s elders were accustomed to seeing novices weeding the roses. So with a few minutes to spare before Vespers, he crouched in the soft dirt and began weeding his way toward the languishing fingers.
Aidan liked to weed. Plucking unwanted sprouts from among the holiest flowers of Christ was honorable work. In Aidan’s first week as a novice, Brother Eamon had explained how weeding mimicked the plucking of sin, bit by bit, from one’s soul. Aidan sometimes meditated on that idea as he worked, but mostly he enjoyed the colors, the scents, and the numbers of the roses and of each tiny weed. In removing the intruders, he paid special attention to the veins and shapes of their leaves. When he finally became a scribe, he would draw beautiful leaves and vines into the borders of manuscripts he illuminated.
“Oh! You. Halloo there.”
Aidan started, having almost forgotten that he wasn’t just weeding. From his crouch he could see that deep in the recess where her fingers had stretched, the girl’s round cheek now pressed to the slit. One brilliant blue eye gazed out at him. Her eleven-ness struck him again, trilling, and he dismissed the concern that had crept over him earlier. That sound couldn’t possibly be demonic. It was too radiant, too distilled, and now he thought he understood a bit more. She wasn’t a thief, exactly, but Aidan guessed that the clever seven he’d heard so often from thieves had combined with her girlish four-ness to catapult her past nine and all the way to that intriguing, enticing eleven.
“You’re young, for a monk,” she said. “You can’t be much older than I am.”
“I haven’t taken my final vows yet,” Aidan murmured. “I’m still just a novice.” He wasn’t so young, either; the abbey’s thirteen-year-old monk was constantly held up as an example. Four years older, Aidan often felt half as learned or pious—or obedient. Reflexively, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching.
“Are you scared you’ll get in trouble if you talk to me?” A taunt lurked in her voice.
He scowled. “Not scared,” he said, but he kept his voice very low.
She sighed. Her feisty tone vanished. “You will, won’t you?”
He was almost certain the answer was yes. Idle chatting was frowned upon. Modest and useful speech was permitted until the last evening prayers, but those locked in the penitent cells were left wholly to reflection. Of course, this girl was no monk, so perhaps none of the usual rules applied. Aidan knew that to be wishful thinking, but it allowed him to take a risk that he could not resist.
“You’re supposed to be mortifying your flesh and contemplating your sins,” he whispered, hunkering closer so his voice wouldn’t drift beyond the roses.
“My flesh is mortified,” she said. “I’m cold and starving and stuck here in the dark. Isn’t that enough?”
Aidan didn’t bother to mention the small whip in that cell for penitents to punish themselves with. He hadn’t beaten himself with it, either. She didn’t wait for an answer anyway.
“Never mind that,” she said. “What’s your name?”
Afraid he was seeding weeds into his soul instead of plucking them out but unable to stop himself, he told her.
“O’Kirin?” she asked. “I know your sister. How odd I’ve never met you before.”
“I’ve been here for most of the last five years,” he explained. “But I’ve seen you on feast days. When you noticed me in the yard, I thought maybe you knew me. You looked-”
“No,” she said, so hastily that Aidan wondered why she denied it. “I’m Lana,” she continued quickly. “I live down-river near the quarry with my mother.”
“I know,” he replied. “One of Lord Donagh’s daughters.”
Even through the narrow slot, her surprise showed. “How did you know he’s my father?” she asked, her voice low.
“Everyone knows,” Aidan said, with a shrug. “People like to talk about highborn folk, and they especially like to gossip about their bastards. Makes ’em more like the rest of us.”
After a pained silence, she said, “‘Natural child’ is a kinder way to say it.”
“What’s unkind about bastard? ’Tis the truth.” Wishing he could see more of her face, he added, “Besides, it was hardly your fault.”
“He acts like it was,” she said softly. “And so does most everyone else.”
“Donagh can bed any woman he wants, whether the rest of us like it or not.” Aidan tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. His eldest brother, wed to a beautiful wife, had learned this hard lesson firsthand. Relieved it had been only once, those who knew of the affront never questioned whether Liam’s young son was actually his. The honor-price Donagh had paid for that trespass had partly funded Aidan’s entrance to the monastery, however, so he, at least, could not forget it. The injustice weighed on his own conscience and silently rankled his heart.
“But ’tis harder to ignore when fatherless children are born of it,” he added, feeling a secret bond with Lana. “You’re a reminder. People only scowl at you because they don’t dare scowl at him. Perhaps they should.” Abruptly realizing that a monk should not speak so frankly, he checked over his shoulder again before finishing lamely, “After all, adultery is a sin.”
“Monks think everything is a sin,” she grumbled. “If I’m so evil, why are you talking to me?”
“I never said you were evil,” he protested, though he’d considered exactly that notion earlier. He didn’t reply to the second part of her question. He wanted to tell her she was the only eleven he’d ever met, but after Brother Eamon’s reaction, he’d learned to keep his mouth shut about numbers.
“I wish I was home.” Sighing, she drew back from the slot in the wall.
With a pang of sympathy, Aidan said softly, “Sounds to me as though you live here now, at least for a while. ’Tis not so bad. There’s usually plenty of food, and we’re safe from clan raids and—”
Just then a bell clanged.
“Time for Vespers,” he said, brushing dirt from his fingers. “I have to go.”
“Wait,” she pleaded. “I can’t see the sky, so I won’t see the moon or the stars. When the sun’s gone, it will be black in here. And I’m afraid of things in the dark. Don’t you have any candles to burn?”
The novices’ dormitory had a lamp that burned most of the night, but Aidan knew she would have no such luxury. “Go to sleep now, and you won’t notice,” he suggested.
She didn’t answer. He could feel her fear seep out through the slit in the wall. Fear always droned of the number one, and hers was tinny and bleak. The novice rubbed his palms against the coarse cloth of his robe. He needed to leave or he’d be late, but his heart vibrated in sympathy for her.
He reached and broke the stem of a rose. Passing the flower to her fingers, he said, “Here. The rose is a symbol of God’s grace. He will protect you in the—”
“He’s never protected me before,” she scoffed.
Shocked by her impious remark, Aidan floundered for a reply.
“But thank you anyway,” she added. “You’re kind. I’ll … I’ll smell it and let it remind me of the sun.”
Aidan hurried to Vespers. It was a good thing he knew most of the hymns and prayers by heart, because his mind was not on them. He spent more of the worship musing about Lana than contemplating anything holy.
III
Rory caught Aidan’s eye as Vespers ended and the monks were dismissed.
Novices were firmly discouraged from forming bonds with anyone except their confessor. Rory wasn’t too much younger than Aidan, however, and he’d lived at the abbey as a servant before becoming a novice, so he overflowed with useful information.
Aidan couldn’t help being drawn to him. The pale boy had a quick wit and a secretive smile, although he buzzed so harshly of the number one that it set Aidan’s teeth on edge. The fearsome noise didn’t seem to match Rory’s easy ways, so Aidan often wondered if his fellow novice was ill. Reluctant to explain his concern, he didn’t dare ask. Rory’s impish humor made up for the discomfort of being around him. The pair often swapped opinions about their chores, their meals, and certain of their brethren. Once in a while, they whispered together about a problem or confusion before drumming up the courage to discuss it with a more senior adviser.
Now, as the novices flowed out from their rear corner of the chapel, Rory lagged. He pretended to be transfixed by the carving of Saint Nevin on the lintel over the doorway. Aidan caught up with him. They both ducked out and jockeyed to walk side by side.
Because speech was strictly forbidden during meals, months ago they’d worked out a few subtle hand signs by which they could say hello, find out how the other was doing, and plan to meet for any hurried conversation that might not earn their masters’ approval. They used these signals over short distances and in crowds as well as during meals, and now Aidan scratched his right ear, asking, “What is it?” as Rory trod alongside.
“You’re looking reverent this evening, Brother Aidan,” Rory murmured. This comment was also a code that meant the younger boy could see something weighing on Aidan’s mind.
“Only troubled by the needs of the body,” Aidan responded, without looking at him. Novices were taught to use those words when they needed to visit the privy.
Understanding, Rory trudged with Aidan and a few others toward the latrine. Both stepped back respectfully to let senior monks pass and then stood in single file as if awaiting a turn. Once the small double privy was empty, they could remain just outside it and talk. Going in would have meant that anyone approaching might have heard them, but once the first rush following prayers or a meal was over, the sight of not one but two people already in line was enough to turn others away, at least briefly.
“There’s a girl here,” Aidan murmured, without turning. “She’s—”
Behind him, Rory choked. “In the privy?”
“No! In the abbey. Lord Donagh brought her, and it sounds as if she’ll be staying.”
When Rory didn’t answer immediately, Aidan twisted his head to see why. At last the younger boy teased, “Careful, brother. Chastity in flesh and in thought.”
Aidan groaned. “I’m sorry we ever talked about that.”
Perhaps because he was younger or simply more self-controlled, Rory seemed amused by Aidan’s struggle with the temptations of women. Those temptations so far had been only imagined, but that did not lessen their pull. Aidan had expected the lusty thoughts and dreams to fade once he’d committed himself solely to the company of other fellows, not counting the abbot’s fat wife or Father Niall’s crabby one. The reverse, if anything, seemed to be true. The more time passed, the more female shapes rose unbidden in his mind. He’d confessed it more than once and tried to follow Brother Eamon’s advice. There were times, however, when the contemplation of God somehow turned into the contemplation of girls he had known. Aidan would hardly notice the shift until something, sometimes his own treacherous body, abruptly alerted him that he’d strayed.
Brother Eamon had kindly assured him that a firm will and the love of God would help him prevail. Rory, too, seemed bent on reminding him often and heartily, but Aidan wasn’t so sure. At times only the complete lack of privacy stood between him and the kind of touching that his mentor called self-abuse. Since even the latrine had two seats, however, the temptation was quashed, if not by Aidan’s will, then by others’ watchful eyes.
“I just thought it was interesting,” Aidan grumbled, trying to pretend there was no truth in Rory’s assumption. “Girls don’t arrive here every day. Forgive me for noticing.”
“I forgive you, not that it will do you much good,” Rory said amiably. “’Tis not my forgiveness you need. But if I were God Almighty, I’d make the rules easier for you.”
“Shh! Careful, yourself,” Aidan said, glancing sharply toward the workshops behind them. Wool spinners and weavers were returning to conclude their day’s labors but paying no attention to anyone near the latrine. “That’s almost blasphemy to say you could do better than God.”
“I think it is blasphemy, or it would be if I meant it.” Rory’s voice dropped. “But anyone can see that some of the rules come from men, not from God. How long would people inhabit His earth to worship Him if we were all pure and chaste? He’d have to create new men from mud.”
Aidan chomped hard on a grin. “You think He’d rather put up with a few carnal sinners?”
“It was His idea, obviously. If we weren’t meant to come together like animals, He could have made us more like plants.” Rory brushed his toes through the dust, musing. “God is probably relieved when monks and priests just take wives and don’t try to pretend. Fewer virgin births for the angels to herald that way.”
“Ai. You’d better never talk like that around anyone else,” Aidan warned, again eyeing the yard behind them. “Even the other novices might turn you in.”
“Ah, that’s why you’ll take vows before I ever will, my brother. You’re not more devoted. Just more cautious, I guess.” He stepped past Aidan toward one side of the latrine.
Aidan stopped him with a grip on his arm. Rory’s glib tone had fallen flat. The older novice looked for a jest in his friend’s pallid gray eyes. None lay there.
“Do you question your calling, Rory?”
Rory gazed back, clearly wondering not how to answer, but whether he should.
“You can trust me,” Aidan murmured. “I won’t say anything.”
With one hand, Rory smoothed the coarse cloth over his chest. “I didn’t have much choice about coming here,” he said, speaking to the ground at their feet. “Less than you, even. My parents gave me and my younger brother to God so the rest wouldn’t starve. But, Aidan—” He looked up. “Have you ever heard God’s voice? Actually heard it speaking, I mean? Or an angel’s?”
Aidan hesitated. The humming of numbers was not quite a voice, and although he hoped it came from God, he certainly didn’t hear it as words.
“Not exactly,” he said. He held his breath, gathering nerve to say more. “But I—”
“I have,” Rory said, his face more unreadable than Aidan had ever seen it. “Once. I was told that I will face Christ’s judgment in heaven before long and reminded to complete as much of His work as I can in the days I have left. That’s why I always volunteer to hand out the alms to the hungry. But I doubt I will ever take the tonsure and have a bald place shaved on my head.”
Aidan wanted to tell Rory he must have been wrong about the voice or its message. He couldn’t do it. Even if he had never heard anything mystic himself, he had his own suspicions about his friend’s health. Rory’s admission confirmed them.
While Aidan gnawed his lip and wondered what else he could say, Rory grinned.
“That doesn’t mean I want to see you go astray. If I’m wrong, I’ll just be a lay brother working the fields or cutting stone for the new church. Only tonsured monks get to be scribes. So I figure my good works should include keeping a sharp eye on your soul. Forget about that girl.”
Rory pulled free and slipped inside the privy before Aidan could collect his wits to respond. His eyes scoured the packed earth of the yard while his mind retraced Rory’s words. The idea that he was being watched and guided by a younger friend felt backward and shameful. Worse, he feared Rory was probably right.
IV
Rory’s shocking admission briefly pushed Lana from Aidan’s mind. Not long after the two novices signaled a farewell outside the privy, however, she tripped back into his thoughts. Chores left him no time to wander before darkness and the first nighttime prayers. Afterward, on his way back to the hut that served as the novices’ dormitory, Aidan took a detour. He hung back from those
traipsing toward their beds and slipped away to the rose garden. It was indeed a dark night, but as he crept from one building or stone cell to the next, he unconsciously let his ears guide him. Not only the hidden monks but the wooden timbers, the grass thatch, and the roses hummed a muted trail of numbers to follow.
The brothers remained silent throughout the night, except for the Nocturns worship at midnight and Matins a few hours later, so he wouldn’t be able to speak to her this time. But the memory of her fear and her fingers straining out of her cell, as though from an unfinished tomb, had haunted his prayer time. He wanted to check whether she had fallen asleep as advised.
She hadn’t. As he made his way between the shadowy rosebushes, he heard her softly crooning an old song to herself. The notes drifted to him like the fabled music of faeries. Chills ran along his skin.
Perhaps he gasped or she heard his footsteps. The song stopped. Aidan had never before minded the strict silence that followed the last prayers of the day. Now words clogged in his throat. He wanted to ask her to continue her song. He’d heard plenty of monks singing in chapel, some with more talent than others, but he’d never heard a trilling like this. Her voice, harmonizing with the chimes of eleven, could have been that of an angel.
Struggling to keep his tongue still, he snapped another rose off its stem and passed it into the gap in the wall. Her hand was not there. Unsure if she’d notice his gift in the dark, he tapped his nails on the stone. This noise stretched the bounds of obedience, but he couldn’t see how a little rapping of fingers differed so much from soft footfalls or the creak of a door.
She heard him. “Aidan?”
He couldn’t reply, but he might not have answered anyway. He wanted to hear his name again in her silvery tones.
She didn’t repeat herself. She did not sing again, either, though he waited so long he feared his absence from the dormitory might be noticed. He could feel her eleven-ness and her strangeness and her girlish defiance just on the other side of the thick stone wall. No rustling or even the sound of her breathing, however, escaped through the slot. He put his hand to it, but the stone was hard and rough and empty of both roses and fingers, other than his. So he pulled away and crept out of the garden, hoping she did not hear him leave.