Brother Tom’s hand stopped halfway to his mouth and slowly sank down to his plate again. The morsel of cheese he was holding dropped from his fingers forgotten. He watched Peregrine’s mortification as the attention of the whole table was inevitably turned towards him. He had spilt some of his food, but not much, and had been struggling with his knife to cut a piece of meat. It was unwise to attempt it, but he was hungry and the food was delicious. The knife had turned in his awkward grasp, and there was gravy splashed on his hands and on the fine linen tablecloth. Brother Tom looked anxiously at Prior William as he reclined in his graceful chair, holding Peregrine in the cool taunting of his gaze.
‘Don’t,’ whispered Tom. ‘Oh, please don’t.’ It was unbearable.
‘Perhaps you would prefer to have your food cut up for you?’ purred the spiteful voice. The pale eyes watched him relentlessly. The eyebrows were raised and the lips curved in their mirthless smile. Father Peregrine returned his gaze, his face flushed, his jaw clenched. The men nearest them stirred uncomfortably and tried in vain to keep their conversation going.
Father Peregrine looked down a moment at his food. Then he looked back at Prior William. The pale blue eyes shone with malicious mockery. ‘Father Columba?’ he prompted. Brother Tom held his breath.
‘Yes, please,’ said Peregrine humbly. ‘I would be grateful for that assistance.’
Tom’s breath sighed out of him as the tension was broken. He felt like standing on his chair and cheering. ‘What a man! What a man! To so humble himself to that cruel devil!’ he rejoiced inside. But his rejoicing was numbed when he saw how Peregrine’s hand was shaking as he reached out for his goblet of wine. It had cost him dear.
‘Oh! Alas!’ came the hateful, gentle voice again. ‘Father Columba has spilt his wine now. You do normally feed yourself, Father? I never thought to ask.’
‘I do,’ said Peregrine, almost inaudibly.
‘Ah well, never mind,’ the prior’s voice persisted. ‘The boy will mop up the mess you have made. Boy! See the mess he has made: there… yes and there. And there. Thank you. Replenish his wine.’
The cut food was replaced in front of Father Peregrine, and he murmured his thanks but scarcely touched it after that. His wine he drained like medicine, and he drank heavily throughout the rest of the meal, speaking to no one, his confidence shattered. And all the while, those pale, malevolent eyes returned to look at him complacently. The company rose from their meal in time for the afternoon office of None. Peregrine swayed as he tried to stand, and leaned on the table for support. Brother Tom hastened to his side.
‘Are you not well, Father Columba?’ came the heartless voice. ‘Perhaps you have taken a little too much wine? We shall quite understand if you wish to be excused from the Office.’
‘Oh shut up,’ muttered Brother Tom under his breath, and he took his abbot’s arm and looked round for Father Chad.
Between them, he and Father Chad manoeuvred their abbot and his crutch out of the prior’s house and back across the cloister to the guest house. They were kindly ignored by the other guests, and Brother Tom was relieved to catch a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of Prior William departing for chapel.
‘Now for the stairs,’ said Father Chad dubiously, as they came to the guest house door. Peregrine raised his head.
‘Chad, go to chapel,’ he ordered abruptly. ‘I don’t trust that weasel out of my sight and hearing. Go to chapel. I’ll join you later.’
But he leaned on Brother Tom as he spoke, and his speech was very slurred. Tom doubted very much if he would be going anywhere but his bed, although getting him there would be another matter.
Some of his escapades with Brother Francis proved good practice for this occasion for it was not easy manhandling a man, both lame and dead drunk, backwards up the narrow stairway. Peregrine complicated matters by refusing point-blank to relinquish his crutch, which he clung to as the last symbol of his independence.
They made it though, and Tom helped him into his chamber, where he collapsed onto a chair and sat staring moodily at nothing.
‘Let me unfasten your boots, Father. I think maybe a sleep would do you good,’ suggested Brother Tom, and squatted at Peregrine’s feet to untie the thongs that laced his boots.
Resting his hand on his abbot’s knee, he looked up into his face at the bleary, unfocused eyes and uncharacteristic sag, and could not resist a grin. ‘Faith, man, you have drunk well,’ he said. Peregrine looked at him morosely, and nodded in assent.
‘Who’s the fool now?’ he said bitterly.
But Tom’s look of amusement and affection penetrated the fog of alcohol and misery that enveloped him, and he managed a lopsided smile.
Brother Tom coaxed him into his bed, where he slept like the dead until morning.
The next day, in the Chapter meeting, Father Peregrine was determined to make up for the ground he had lost by his absence from the previous afternoon’s debate. Père Guillaume spoke of all the Old Testament history in which God’s justice was the sign of his presence, the manifestation of his love. He spoke with impressive and detailed knowledge, and Prior William sat nodding with satisfaction in his chair as he heard him. But when Peregrine stood to speak, their eyes were all upon him. His absence had not gone unremarked the day before, and the men were curious to know what he would say now; how he would conduct himself, having last left their midst too drunk to walk alone.
‘It is true, what you say, Abbé Guillaume,’ he said. ‘It is true that judgement and authority, the instruments of justice on earth, are authenticated by the command of God. It is true that God shapes the lives of men in the ways of justice, and that the righteous find expression of his Spirit in the paths of justice and of peace. But justice is a path, yes a way; it is not a home. It is a framework, or a setting, but it was made to carry another jewel. Justice, like John the Baptist, is the forerunner, clears the road, for the coming of the Christ himself. And when he comes, he is compassion. He is love. Remember the words of the psalmist “Hodie si vocem ejus audientis, nolite obdurare corda vestra.” Harden not your hearts. Today, if you want to hear the Lord’s voice, harden not your hearts. Oh God forbid that our lives display the sterile correctness of men who have learned what justice is, but never tasted mercy.’
The gathering of men listened spellbound to the urgency of his voice, as he clung like a terrier to a rat to his insistence on God’s merciful love as the one, central, all-supporting fact of life.
The prior watched him without emotion, biding his time. In debate this man was magnificent, but he was not invulnerable, it seemed. There were other ways of discrediting him. Prior William smiled complacently as they went in to eat after the midday Office. He waited his moment with pitiless detachment. There was entertainment to be derived from seeing this accomplished and scholarly aristocrat grow increasingly uneasy as he tried to ignore the sadistic patience of his host, tried not to lose his nerve under that unpleasantly speculative gaze. There was pleasure in the waiting, but not too long. Once grace was said, the men were seated and the meal was underway, the cruel, gentle voice began.
‘Oh, but we mustn’t forget to cut your food up for you, Father Columba. Ah, it is done. Can you manage—or not really? Alas, how thoughtless of me to provide insufficiently for you. Look, Father Columba, you have dropped a piece of meat. It seems a shame to soil your garments so, does it not? Perhaps you should have a towel tied about you, as a child does who is learning to eat, yes? That would answer your requirements, would it not? Fetch a towel, boy, a large one, and tie it about him.’
The conversation at the head of the table had ceased in the embarrassment of this baiting, and the men occupied themselves self-consciously with their food. Father Peregrine withdrew his hands from sight and hid them in his lap, protected from view by the wide sleeves of his habit. Mute and still, he waited for the next gibe as the boy came towards him with the towel, and Prior William leaned forward to speak again, his victory shining softly in his eyes.
>
‘Mais non, laissez-le tranquil, mon père. Ca suffit,’ murmured Abbé Guillaume unhappily, but the prior did not heed him.
‘Thanks, lad. There now, here is the towel. Shall he not tie it about you, my friend?’
Peregrine looked round at the boy standing there with the cloth in his hands and then at the sophisticated men who sat hushed in unwilling fascination at the sight of him caught in his clumsiness and helplessness. It was more than he could bear.
‘No!’ The harsh pain of his cry splintered the tension of the atmosphere. Tom thought the loneliness of it would have bruised a heart of stone, but it did nothing to disturb Prior William’s placid smile. He scarcely even blinked. Peregrine groped on the floor for the crutch that lay beside him, and pushing back his chair with a violence that sent it crashing to the ground, he stumbled blindly to the door. One of the serving-boys assisted him in his ineffectual struggle with the latch, and he escaped.
Brother Tom sat frozen in his seat, appalled. The prior looked down the length of the table at him, his eyebrows raised, his eyes mocking. ‘He seems a temperamental, unstable man, your lord,’ he remarked in the silence. ‘Does he ever complete a meal both sober and in good humour? Or have I said something to upset him?’
The blood was pounding in Tom’s ears like thunder. He stared, speechless with rage, at this cruel, smiling man. His heart remembered those weeping words from long ago, ‘Oh God, how shall I bear the loss of my hands?’. And he lost his temper.
Slowly, he rose in his place. Father Chad took one look at him and buried his head in his hands. Brother Tom walked with measured deliberation to the head of the table, and stood looking down at the prior, who returned his look with scornful amusement.
Tom took a deep breath, and with an effort kept himself from shouting. ‘It is easy, easy, sir,’ he said, his voice unsteady with restrained rage, ‘to humiliate a man and make him look foolish. Why, all it takes is this…’ Quick as lightning, Tom shot out his arm, seized the prior by his silver hair and smacked his head down into his dinner. He stood shaking with anger, oblivious to the murmurs of some and the stunned silence of others. Prior William lifted his dripping face from the table. His left eyebrow was decorated with a blob of parsley sauce. The boy who held the towel hurried to his side.
‘It’s not so easy to win a debate, nor to humble yourself before another man!’ Tom bellowed at him. ‘That takes intellect and courage. You, my lord, have made it plain that you have neither!’ He stood glaring at him for a moment, then said in contempt, ‘Ah, you sicken me. I would rather be the cockroach that crawls on the floor in the house where my abbot is master than be the greatest of those who serve under you.’
It might even then not have been so bad had not Father Roger from Whitby added a quiet ‘Amen’. That was the last straw.
‘Take him away,’ snapped Prior William, his face a mask of fury behind the remnants of sauce. ‘Let him cool his head in the prisons until his master is in a fit state to give permission for his flogging. I had heard the Benedictine houses were sliding into decadence, but now I see it with my own eyes.’
It was not until after the afternoon’s discussions had been concluded and Vespers said that Father Peregrine caught up with Father Chad.
‘Where’s Brother Thomas?’ he asked, with some trepidation. ‘What’s he done now?’
‘I regret he made a spectacle of himself at the table after you left, Father.’ Father Chad shook his head sadly. ‘He pushed my lord prior’s face down into his dinner. He said it took no more than that to humiliate a man and make him look foolish. He said it took courage to humble oneself before another man, and intellect to win a debate, and that my lord prior had neither. His implication was that you, Father, have both, though he left that unsaid.’
He raised his face to look at his superior, sorry and ashamed, but Peregrine was grinning at him incredulously.
‘He did so? He said that? Well God bless him. That redeems a few insults. Courage to humble oneself and intellect to win in debate. And I was about to run away. What have they done with him then?’
‘He was confined in the prison, Father, until you should be with us again to give permission for his flogging.’
‘Flogging for what? Not I! They’ll not lay a finger on him!’
The confrontation came in the Chapter meeting the following morning, as part of the business before the theological debate. Brother Tom, dishevelled and defiant, was brought to stand before the gathering to face the prior enthroned on his high-backed, intricately-carved chair on its dais. Prior William regarded him with cold dislike (as much charity as a man bears towards the slug on his salad, thought Tom).
‘You deserve to be flogged, you young fool,’ said the suave, smooth voice, ‘for your gross and brutish manners. You give your permission, I am sure, Father Columba, for his beating?’
The velvet voice permitted itself a shade of triumph. He had caught them. Disgraced them. Discredited them. But Father Peregrine replied, ‘I do not.’ He rose to his feet. ‘In my house,’ he said, ‘we do not flog a man for loyalty, nor for love, however inadvisedly expressed. We treasure it. However, neither do we permit discourtesy and violence to go unchecked. Brother Thomas, you must ask his forgiveness.’
Brother Tom looked at his abbot, who returned his look calmly, confident of his authority with his own. Tom knelt before the prior.
‘Father, I humbly confess my fault of grave discourtesy and unseemly violence. I ask God’s forgiveness for my offence, and yours, my lord.’
Prior William looked down at Brother Tom, his pale eyes bulging with rage. He had no idea how they’d done it, but they’d turned the tables on him somehow. For how can you humiliate a man who humbles himself, or disgrace a man who willingly kneels? There stood that insufferable cripple, with the bearing of a king, and there knelt his loutish boy, humbly begging forgiveness, with not even a trace of cynicism or rebellion to his voice that one could fasten on to condemn.
‘You are forgiven. Go in peace,’ the prior spat out, after the custom of his house. The beautiful words almost choked him. ‘Go to hell’ would have been more in line with the look on his face.
Peregrine spoke again. ‘I recommend for your penance, my son, that you be returned to your cell, for it seems I cannot guarantee your self-control when you are provoked to anger. I suggest you fast there on bread and water until we return home.’
‘So be it,’ snapped the prior, and irritably dismissed Brother Tom with his long, white, bejewelled hand.
So Tom finished the week as he had begun it, fasting on bread and water, in narrow escape of a severe beating. There were three prison cells, grim stone hovels, their only light the rays of the morning sun shining through the small barred window set in each of the heavy doors. In the cell adjoining his was one of the local men, a farmer, kept there until his family should pay off an outstanding debt to the priory, for right of way across the canons’ land. He and Tom whiled away some of the hours of their imprisonment in talk. They could converse tolerably well if they raised their voices and stood with their faces up against the barred apertures in the cell doors.
‘He’s a grasping old tyrant, is the prior,’ the farmer ruminated, when he had told Tom the story of his troubles and his debt. ‘Well, that’s plain enough. Look at this conference, up to his tricks again. “Enough” is a word beyond his understanding.’
‘What? I thought this business was all theology, spiritual stuff.’
‘Spiritual? God save us, nothing’s spiritual here but the servants’ wages. No, he wants the fishing rights of the river.’
‘Fishing? What has that to do with his conference?’ Tom was bewildered.
‘Justice and mercy, isn’t it, all this talk? Am I right? Ah, I thought so. Well, young man, justice, in Prior William’s terms, is that all the fishing of the whole stretch of the river that runs through his lands, four miles of it, nigh on, is his. He can turn off any of the villagers who seek a little fishing there, and fine any
poachers. Mercy means that a man of the cloth like him should look kindly on the rights the villagers have enjoyed for years, and let them have a little pleasure and a few fish dinners at his expense. Now then: which is a man of God? Just or merciful? Prior William’s notion is to have justice win the day, so he can lean on the Bishop to back him up when he petitions the sheriff to enforce his fishing prohibition. Eh? Are you still there?’
‘I’m here, but… stone the crows! The greedy old…! Is it true what you say? Fishing!’
‘Aye well, you monks eat a lot of fish.’ The farmer chuckled appreciatively at Tom’s indignant snort.
‘Any road, that’s the story. Eh up, here comes my vegetable broth and your dry bread. Mother of God, you must have almost a quarter pound there. Is it a feast day?’
Father Peregrine also finished the conference lightheaded with hunger, surviving the nightmarish meals where, for the glory of God, he humbled himself to be tied in a towel like a child. He also finished triumphant in debate, having established beyond all doubt in the minds of his hearers what they should have known anyway, that it is mercy which is the power of God.
So Prior William, having spent hand over fist on hospitality to prove the opposite point, lost his case (he later had his suit rejected by the Bishop, and lost his fishing rights too). He did not come out to bid Father Peregrine farewell on the morning they left, Tom having been released from imprisonment, eaten heartily and shaved his abbot with loving care.
But as they rode out, Abbé Guillaume hailed them from across the court where his own party were making ready. He came running breathlessly.
‘Adieu, mon frère,’ he said, taking Peregrine’s hand tenderly. ‘It is an honour to have engagé in debate with you once more.’
The Wounds of God Page 4