‘I shall keep my dagger by me, Giles. Do not worry so. Besides, all the women in the sleeping chamber, they are comfortable matrons. I do not think they would know how to stab me, even in my sleep. It is you who must take care. Now, if we are to go the Abbey, and come back here before dark, let us go straightway. That Simon is here.’
Now that she was so close to finding him, she was nervous. Her stomach and throat were tight-knotted. Suppose he would not recognise the green jade? Suppose it was all so long ago he had forgotten? She had only Nene’s memories, and Nene had been a young girl in love. But Nene was always right, she thought: if she and Will shared a so great love, then this was truth, and he would be pleased to see the granddaughter of the child they had made between them.
And after all she was too late.
‘Master Will? You say this is his granddaughter?’ The very small, very young, white-robed monk had only today been trusted with duty in the gatehouse. He was chattering with anxiety. A woman at the Abbey gatehouse! Demanding admittance! And Brother Wilfred dead not even two months gone. ‘I’ll ask for the Prior. He will know best what to do. Oh dear.’ He hurried away, leaving Kazan and Giles to wait outside the Abbey precinct. Not long to wait. The prior arrived with the little monk galloping at his heels, his robe billowing out behind him.
‘You are welcome, sir, though not your lady. We do not admit any to this House of Prayer, and certainly not women. The new Abbot is very strict.’
‘What does he say, Giles?’
‘You can’t come in. You’ll corrupt them all.’ He smothered a grin though he was tired with travel, full of anxiety for the girl. ‘I’m welcome. I’m Adam – you’re wicked Eve come to tempt them.’
She put a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh no! Really?’
‘Really. Better if you’d come in your boy’s şalvar and gömlek.’
‘But not honest, Giles. Have faith. I shall wait and you will find my grandfather.’
‘Perhaps they’ll let you into the gatehouse.’ He engaged in energetic discussion with the prior, protesting that this young lady had travelled from a far-off land to meet her grandfather. Almost as far as Holy Jerusalem. And now she was to be denied? Not even allowed into the gatehouse on a cold March afternoon? Simon Salter would stay with her; he would protect the young monk from any temptation. She had never before heard Giles so burningly caustic.
The prior was heavy-hearted. He looked from the girl’s anxious face to the young man’s angry one. There was bad news awaiting her at the end of her long journey and he didn’t want to be the one to tell it. He acceded at last that she wait in the gatehouse. ‘But she must stay here, in this place. And you, Brother Jude, will not exchange any words with the woman. You hear?’
The little monk nodded and shivered and kept his eyes downcast. How bright was this young woman’s gaze, her eyes gold-flecked like the Abbot’s hunting hawks. Enough to make a monk regret his vows. He shook his head. He avoided her eyes, after that one look.
Giles was taken to the Abbot’s lodging. The Abbot was not a man to be disturbed by even the most startling news. He took the sudden arrival of the tough-looking young squire and the foreign girl with equanimity, though he made sure the young female was kept at a distance. Even her presence in the gatehouse was bad enough. He yearned after the old Cistercian commands when all was clear, austere, pure. If he could, he would return this abbey to its true state of Christian virtue.
‘I fear our brother Wilfred is dead these two months past. Come where it is warm. The air is cold, despite this welcome sun.’ He indicated a bench close to the hearth. ‘We had not expected the arrival of any family, least of all a grand-daughter,’ he said calmly. ‘Wilfred’s family was killed in the Great Floods of 1282. He was not married. Yes, he travelled far and wide and men are what they are.’ He pursed his lips, carefully tolerant of the ways of the world. He pondered. They had come a long way, these two. Should he? Brother Hugh was a steady soul but he had been too much moved by the Wordmaker’s story, and distraught by his death and the manner of it. ‘You say the girl has never known her grandfather?’
‘She knows him only from the stories her grandmother told. And we have seen his image, Father Abbot, painted when he was much the same age as I am now.’
Faint surprise rippled across the Abbot’s face; his expression became smooth again. ‘His image, you say?’
‘In the chapel of the Scrovegni family, in Padua.’
‘Ah, the Franciscan chapel.’
‘A man called Giotto painted people who look so real it seems they will walk off the walls and into the chapel.’
‘I have heard of this Giotto. Very modern, of course. We are traditional here.’ He was interested, all the same. ‘And you say he painted the girl’s grandfather?’
‘Yes. In several of the scenes.’
‘Nothing blasphemous or heretical, I hope?’
The question came sharply. Giles said curtly, ‘Not at all, Father Abbot. He was painted as a bystander, one of the crowd, a soldier. Nothing that could offend a holy man.’
The Abbot nodded. He made up his mind. ‘There is a Brother here who was with Brother Wilfred the night before he died; he listened to Wilfred’s story and will swear to its truth. Perhaps you would wish to speak with this Brother?’
‘Of course,’ said Giles. He sounded abrupt. This smooth-talking, self-righteous abbot irritated him. He deliberately softened his voice; nothing gained by offending. ‘It would be kind of you to arrange that, Father Abbot.’
Brother Hugh was brought to them, a pale, serious-faced man not yet in his middle-age. ‘I do not know why he chose me, sir. I was honoured. We spent the night in the hospital. He was not a well man and he wished to make confession.’
‘Confession, Brother Hugh?’
‘Of a sort. He told me the story of his life. It was…’ he paused, bewildered, at a loss for words, ‘…extraordinary,’ he said.
‘Did he speak of Mistress Kazan’s grandmother?’ Giles asked.
‘No, sir. I am sorry.’ He spoke quietly, barely above a whisper. ‘He talked mostly of his brother, sir, and the Welshman, the music man, Ieuan ap y Gof, who was a renegade before the first Edward subdued the Welsh lands.’ A hero, he thought, but that was wrongful thinking. ‘They met him first here at the Abbey, before the First Welsh War. He had broken his leg and was resting until he was well enough to travel back to Wales. He taught the brother how to play music.’ Sweet music; so sweet old Brother Matthew talked of it even now. That was in the days of the old Abbot, a man of gentleness and tolerance. Would that Abbot have allowed the girl entry? ‘Your grandfather talked of how many fossatores – ditch-diggers, and experts, every man of them – were marched to the Welsh lands to build the first of Edward’s great castles in Wales. Six were sent from the village of Swineshead.’ He paused. ‘If you wish, and if Father Abbot gives his permission and blessing, I can tell you the story as it was told to me. It is a story long in telling.’
Giles looked questioningly towards the Abbot who fixed a stern gaze on Brother Hugh’s bent head. His tonsure gleamed pale in the light from the window; his lashes shadowed his cheeks. He stood quietly, schooled to patience, one hand cupped in the other. Giles wondered what his life was like, bound to his God and his Abbot, day after day, month after month, year after year. It was what Edgar had rejected. Was this truly what his friend Thomas had chosen for his life?
The Abbot nodded. ‘As you wish. You will be our guest tonight and tomorrow you will meet with Brother Hugh.’ He permitted a small smile to flicker across his lips. ‘In our Order it is forbidden for women to live under the same roof as the monks. Even entry past the monastery gate is denied them.’
Giles shook his head. ‘Thank you for your invitation but I cannot accept. I am Kazan’s friend. I am also sworn to be her companion and protector. I cannot and will not leave her alone in a strange town, and a port at that, even if she should wish it, for the sake of the story Brother Hugh has to tell.’ A look at Fathe
r Abbot’s face told him it was more impassive than ever. ‘This is hard news for her. Any true Christian would feel pity for her.’ He was gritting his teeth with the effort of keeping his voice level and quiet but he had the satisfaction of seeing a dull red creep into the other man’s face. ‘We have lodgings in the Dominican’s guesthouse. I’ll return tomorrow to speak with Brother Hugh.’ He thought a moment. ‘Is the grandfather buried here?’
‘Yes.’
‘And I suppose it is not possible for her to see the grave?’
‘I regret not.’
There’s Christian charity for you, thought Giles savagely. He went back through the precinct to the gatehouse. Simon Salter was as good as the word he had given; he was waiting with the pleasure of a hard-working man not accustomed to taking his ease. He had got talking to young Brother Jude. ‘But yer real name’s Robin, innit? Godfrey Baker’s boy?’
The young monk blushed and stammered that he was Brother Jude now; the other was as if it had never been.
‘Ah well,’ Simon Salter said, vaguely. He looked up as Giles strode into the gatehouse. ‘Right you are, young sir? Let’s be back to Boston, then, afore darklins.’
Kazan pushed her hand into Giles’. His own wrapped around her fingers and squeezed them. ‘What is it, Giles?’
‘He is dead, Kazan. These last two months.’
‘Oh.’ It was little more than a wisp of breath. ‘I thought it,’ she said. ‘I felt it.’ She was silent. Silent as she mounted Yıldız and they set their horses moving quietly along the causeway, Simon ahead of them, sure-footed. ‘How did he die?’
‘I’m not sure. Old age, probably. I’m coming back tomorrow to talk with Brother Hugh, the monk who was with him the last night of his life.’ He sighed. ‘Brother Hugh says your grandfather told him his story, and he will tell it to me.’
‘Nene?’
Giles shook his head. ‘He says your grandfather didn’t speak of her. But,’ he added, ‘we must wait until I’ve heard the whole story.’
So he was dead, her grandfather, and all this long journey had been for nothing. She fingered the jade axe about her neck. All for nothing. Nene, I have kept my promise. You said he was alive. You said he would be here for me. No, she had not said that. Only that he was alive, then, at that time in the late summer in the high pastures. Since then, the old man had died and she would only ever know him through Nene’s stories, Nene’s eyes, and the eyes of the painter Giotto. No, not quite true; there were many others who remembered him for the stories he had told. And Dafydd’s grandfather had saved her own from drowning in the Mawddach Falls. She must be thankful for all these memories. Her grandfather would never be forgotten.
‘You must not be sad, Giles,’ she said. ‘Not be angry. It is.’
‘I’ve failed you. I’ve failed Dafydd.’
‘No! Foolish Giles. Of course you have not. How could I have managed without you?’
‘These monks…’ he said. He gritted his teeth. ‘The Father Abbot says you cannot see your grandfather’s grave. You’re not permitted to cross the threshold of the Abbey precinct. It’s as if you were unclean!’
‘Well, and so it is with some of these religious men. Not all.’ She smiled at him, a little crookedly, the gold subdued. ‘You and I do better together, do we not?’
‘Yes.’ He flung his head back, breathed in the earthy smell of the marshland. ‘Yes, Kazan; you, me, all of us. All our band of friends. We are bound together, male and female, Christian and Muslim, for all eternity, living or dead, wherever we may be.’
‘But they are not dead,’ she said. ‘Not Thomas nor Dafydd. We shall see them again.’
‘You think so? And what of Blue and Hatice and…’
‘…Niko and Mehmi? Perhaps they are already with Edgar and Agathi.’ She was smiling but he was serious.
‘You make me think all things are possible.’
‘But so they are, my very dear friend. Remember: “Only Allah the all-compassionate, the all-knowing decides.”‘
‘“There is always room for faith.”’ He was smiling now, his anger receding. ‘Thank God and Allah for men like Kara Kemal and Heinrijc Mertens. They’re truly Men of God. Isn’t it now, Kazan?’
‘You sounded like Dafydd just then.’
‘Did I?’ He sounded pleased. ‘Must be sitting on my shoulder.’ He let the mare Yıldız step ahead of the brown stallion he was riding: Dafydd’s horse, Sadık the Faithful. ‘How are you so sure they’re alive, Dafydd and Thomas?’
‘I feel it is so.’
‘As your grandmother felt your grandfather was alive?’ It was a cruel question but she answered with tranquillity.
‘When she told me so, it was true.’
He sighed. ‘What it is to have faith, Kazan. I envy you.’ The track widened and he drew alongside her again. Her profile was pure against the bleakness of the marshland and late afternoon sky. Her hood had fallen back and her hair, past shoulder-length now, was blown back. The setting sun caught the glint of gold-copper-bronze. A lucky man, Dafydd, to hold this woman’s heart.
The next afternoon he was given leave to spend time with Brother Hugh. The monk was nervous, twitching and restless, but he told the story of how the brothers and the fossatores had journeyed to Flint, unspeakably crude, digging in dirt to make the foundations of the first of the new castles for Edward. ‘It was a hard life. Very hard. Especially for a young boy such as her grandfather, as he was then.’ How they had escaped, how they went in search of the Welshman, the music man, and made their way south-west to Cymer Abbey and were saved from drowning…’
‘By the Welshman, Dic,’ said Giles.
‘Yes, brother, yes, that is so. How do you know this?’
‘He was the grandfather of Kazan’s beloved friend, Dafydd. He saved them and took them to the Abbey of Cymer. And there they recovered. This is true, isn’t it?’
‘It is true, brother. That is what happened.’ Brother Hugh marvelled. ‘It is what is meant to be,’ he said, ‘the granddaughter and the grandson. Truly God is great.’
‘He’d be even greater if he got Dafydd safe to Ieper,’ Giles said. Brother Hugh gulped at the blasphemy.
It was there Will-the-Wordmaker left his brother behind, the monk continued, and returned here, to Swineshead and his family, to his mother and sisters. Some years later, at the end of the second Welsh War it was, one winter, there was a great tragedy. A great storm swept away many towns and villages. The Wordmaker’s family as well. After that, he became a travelling man, searching for his lost brother. He never found him. I listen, and listen but cannot hear their music. So he came home again, in his old age. I came back home – not home, though I call it so. It suits me well enough.It’s comfort you want when your bones ache and your sight’s failing. Brother Hugh sat a moment with his hands folded in front of him, remembering the old man, his determined manner, his voice lost in memory. ‘He did mention, just once, perhaps he had children but if so he had never seen them.’ For all I know, I’ve a brat or two in this world. They’ve never seen fit to find me. No, these were not words for this young man to tell the girl so anxious to find her grandfather. And yet…
‘Well?’
‘He said something…perhaps the girl would find it of comfort.’ There were women. Some for pleasure, that’s true, but others because we shared our souls. I remember…’ He did not say what he remembered, Master Giles, but it is my true belief it was of the girl’s grandmother he spoke. That is all I can tell you.’ He hesitated, fluttering nervously. ‘But there is something more.’
‘Yes?’
‘We found him amongst the reeds in the freezing cold. He had walked out there in the late night. I am sure he meant to die but I did not say so or he could not have had a Christian burial and his soul would have wandered for ever in Purgatory.’ Last night I wondered if I heard the swan pipe. Fleeting notes, sweet as only Ned could play them. ‘He held the swan pipe that had been his brother’s. It was precious to him but Father Ab
bot said it was heathen to bury it with him and would have cast it away but I took it and kept it safe. He said it was Ned’s soul that sang when the pipe was played, and the pipe was made of a swan’s wing and they were fallen angels. Such a small thing to be so precious, but isn’t that always so? Here it is. It belongs to his granddaughter now.’
He held it out to Giles. Smooth length of bone flute marked with little scratches. Whispering silent ghost sounds of sweet melodies. The story of another time, another life. ‘Thank you, Brother Hugh. Kazan will treasure this.’
The monk twitched again. ‘I am guilty of a sin, Master Giles, and a sin I have not confessed. I have not told Father Abbot,’ he confided.
‘No, you’re not guilty of a sin, Brother Hugh. You’re guilty of,’ Giles smiled, ‘great kindness.’
‘Thank you, Master Giles, but all the same I must confess and do penance.’ His own smile held an unexpected flicker of mischief. ‘But only after you and the swan pipe have left this abbey.’
Kazan fingered the smooth length of the bone flute that gleamed like moonshine. She held it to her mouth and blew into it but there was no sound, nothing, except for the hiss of breath between her teeth. It needed her grandfather to do that. No, not her grandfather but his brother Ned, the brother who was not a brother; the music man who had no voice of his own but who breathed life into the dead bone until it sang like the angel it had once been. So Nene had told her. It was how Will-the-Wordmaker had told the tale of the swan pipe to her grandmother. Now here was the angel-pipe in her hands and her grandfather was frozen to death in the bleak midwinter marshland by his own will.
‘That is a terrible, beautiful story,’ she said, and after that she was silent, holding the swan pipe carefully in her hands.
They stayed in Boston while rain and wind raged about the low fenlands. So much sky with massed dark clouds stretching across flat brown land that itself stretched away as far as the eye could see. Distant rain was tumbling out of cloud on to earth; it was moving quickly, and soon sharp hail was rattling against the shuttered window. She could hardly remember her own land: the tumbled, rocky coastline where they made winter camp; the high mountains of their summer dwellings. Her sea was blue, not this brown-grey mass that was half land, half sea. It was an in-between land, and she felt in-between. Where was Kazan? Gone, with Dafydd. This shell, this girl who used to be Kazan, journeyed on but her soul was gone from her body.
The Heart Remembers Page 17