Godric

by Frederick Buechner

  WE joined with other pilgrims on the journey home. They came from London town, and how it warmed the heart to hear our native tongue again! An onion is an onion still no matter how you call it. A man's a man, a tree's a tree, and God is God, but when a Norman names them or a Dane Or Roman, there's something lost. The ear takes comfort from the sounds of home, and the outlandish speech of foreign folk makes all the world seem strange.

  There was Richard the baker and Peg his wife. Peg was a sparrow with a peck so sharp there was no proof against it. All was amiss, to hear her chirp, and she was ever chirping. If the sun was warm, she said it stewed her brains. If a cool breeze blew, she squawked of chilblains. The Holy Ghost himself she would have found too holy had he come and perched by her, I think, and Richard was her favorite prey. Whatever roughness of the road or turn of weather vexed her, Richard was the one she blamed.

  “That I should live to see this day!” she'd cry. “I break my toes on heathen ruts, and see my wedded husband shake with mirth!”

  Richard was a waddling goose whose feet flung sideways when he tramped. It's true he laughed too much, but Peg had pecked and pecked till he was silly in the head. He laughed the way geese gaggle, less from mirth than brainless barnyard rote. Wedded to Peg myself, I would have wept. I think his laughter was but Richard's way of tears.

  Ralph Bodo was a mason with many tales to tell of lofty lords he'd met while trimming stones for lordly keeps and towers. He said the Conqueror himself once came upon him pissing near a trough and spoke a kingly jest. “Norman sand and Saxon stale make mighty mortar,” William said, and Ralph never tired saying it again. His finger ends were flat and frayed, and a wayward mallet cost him half a thumb.

  Then there was Maud. Maud claimed she was the widow of a knight and wore a mantle cuffed with squirrel to prove it. She never dipped her nippers in the pot but used an ivory spoon. Her nose she hoisted high as if the whiff of common folk might clog it up, but Maud the Bawd was how Peg dubbed her to her back and swore she'd seen her creep on Richard in the night to whisper lewdness in his ear.

  John Cherryman was the ancient priest who herded us. Three sons had fallen in his sight at Senlac, and he wore a chain about his neck for each. Even the smallest noises frightened him. Let a crow but caw or some branch creak, and his eyes would spin like wheels. His groaning in the night was such that one time Ralph the Mason heaved a stick that caught him on the snout, and poor priest Cherryman bled cherry red till dawn.

  And sometimes Gillian came. I was kneeling at a pond to quaff when suddenly the water's glass showed forth her face behind me. There were green frogs in the reeds that croaked their froggish grief to see the summer pass, but when she spoke, they held their tongues from courtesy.

  “Such drink will leave you thirsting yet,” she said. “Take heed.”

  “Are you a pilgrim, Gillian, like myself ” I asked. “You come and go like wind.”

  “To puff you on a truer course,” she said. Her laughter was a silver bell. “Your hull is thick with barnacles. There's mice that nibble at your shrouds. Rocks wait ahead the way you drift. Christ was a sailor too in Galilee. Hand him your helm.

  “I prayed to him in Rome,” I said. “It was like calling down an empty well.”

  Said Gillian, “Could it be it's he instead that's calling you?”

  I said, “But silence has no voice to call.”

  “The voice of silence calls, 'Be still and hear, poor dunce,” she said. “The empty well within your heart calls too. It says, 'Be full.'”

  “Oh Gillian, I thirst, I thirst,” I said.

  “Then drink your fill, old bear!” she cried, and dowsed my head so deep into the pond that when I dredged it up again, my beard was green with weeds, and she was gone.

  Often too she came at dusk. After they'd supped, our pilgrim band would spread their cloaks to rest. Old Cherryman would close his eyes to curtain off the field at Senlac. Sparrow Peg would twit and peck till Richard gaggled off to sleep and mason Ralph clapped hands to ears like trowels. The lady Maud would bed a pace or two apart lest folk pass by and take her for a churl like us. Aedwen was always first to sleep so she might ferret through her dreams to find if Aedlward was warm again.

  Then I'd see Gillian moving through them like a breeze through trees, so soft as scarce to stir a leaf. She'd bear a basin in her arms to wash my feet of dust and weariness, then dry them with her skirt. If I should ever seek to speak, she'd lay a finger to her lips. Once Aedwen woke and looked at her, but I think she fancied she was dreaming still of Paradise, for soon again she dozed.

  Later, when the nights grew chill, I dreamed that I was by the hearth at home, but when I woke, I found the warmth was Gillian. A man is rarely master of his flesh beside a slender maid beneath his cloak, but she was sleeping there so chaste and still I could have been a marble lord beside a marble lady on a tomb, nor did a single fleshly thought arise to fret me as I watched the starlight in her hair.

  I saw her last upon the Dover road, where after many years I kissed the leper. There was a sharp wind blowing off the sea, and I'd climbed the bank for firewood. I found her waiting by a tree. There was no color in her cheeks. Her brow was shadowed. She said she'd come to bring me news.

  “Here is the sight I saw,” she said. “A man was standing to his knees in snow. More snow was falling. All about, the earth was white. There was no shelter anywhere. He held his bare hands tucked beneath his arms and stood there jigging up and down. Sometimes, for comfort, he would whistle through his teeth. Sometimes he cried out piteously with no one but the stinging flakes to hear. His clothes were thin and poor. The cold was cruel.

  Gillian seemed to feel the cold herself. She trembled as she spoke and drew her mantle close.

  “Even as I watched,” she said, “it happened thus. Down from above a slender ladder came, the same as Jacob dreamed of with his head upon a stone. Its upper part was lost in blowing snow. Its lower hung a clothier's yard or two above his head. Again and again he hopped for it, yet each time tumbled back into the drifts. But then at last his fingers hooked the nether rung, and after dangling there awhile, he gave a tug and heaved himself aloft. I still can see the way he clung. His feet were blue. The harsh wind lashed the rags about his shanks. The hands he started climbing with were seamed with soil from years of honest grubbing.”

  “And what of his ears, Gillian Tell me of the ears he wore!” I cried.

  “They stood out from his head like handles on a pot,” she said, and then, as in that monstrous shell at Rome, I wept. But this time they were tears of hope and thankfulness.

  “Where is he now?” I said. My voice was broken.

  “Leg over leg he mounts to where he”ll wait your coming, child, for even in Paradise there is no peace at last till all we love find peace as well. Pray, fail him not,“ she said.

  “Oh Gillian, be my guide!” I cried. “The waves are vast, and I am far from port!”

  Said she, “Would that I might, but Gillian has her own long way to wend. We all are pilgrims on this earth. My time has come to say farewell.”

  Once more I cried. “Stay, Gillian! Stay for Jesu's sake!”

  “For Jesu's sake and thine, I go,” she said. “Dear heart, farewell,” and when I reached to take her in my arms, it was the tree I clasped, and pressed my cheek against the rough, grey bark.

  “What keeps you, Godric?” Aedwen called me from the road below. “Without some wood to burn, we'll surely freeze!”

  I found some faggots in the end, and with a flint we fired them. Old Cherryman and Peg and Maud and Aedwen. Ralph the mason with his half a thumb and fat goose Richard. They stood there in a ring around the blaze on Dover road, and I stood with them too. But though the flames leapt hot and high, there's part of me that to this day has never thawed.

  Of Falkes de Granvill.

  WHEN we reached home at last with winter on its way, I found a messenger from Mouse had come and gone. His message was the Saint Esprit lay still unpatched in Curran's
slip at Newcastle. They wouldn't have her tight again till spring, and Mouse would meet me then. Burcwen told me.

  “Who's Deric” she said. “The man kept saying Deric this and Deric that. When I vowed I'd never heard of him, he scratched his head and gaped.”

  I told her sailors were an addled lot from beer and tossing. I told her we had a crewman by the name of Deric, and the messenger had got us mixed. “Deric and Godric ring alike,” I said, “but there, thank God, the likeness ends. Deric's a lour that gives himself to lust and lies and thievery. The world would be a fairer place with Deric dead. And so he'll surely be, and soon, if Heaven's just.”

  “I see you've learned great charity in Rome,” said Burcwen.

  I'd hoped our months apart would heal her bitterness. It was not so. William was the stick she sought to drub me with. What sport they'd had, her friend and she! she cried. Even their toil was sport, she said. William would guide the heavy plow down ridge and furrow by its stilts while plodding next him with a goad, she'd drive the ox, and all the time they'd sing and jest.

  “Was it not so, my friend?” she'd say to William as if all other friends were false. She'd hold his hand in hers. She'd lean her head against his shoulder. Her tenderness was William's meat and drink, for William's tenderness for her was true, nor did he ever guess that hers for him, though true in part, was partly feigned to turn my envy green.

  I tried to tell her of the sights we'd seen the Holy Father on his mule, the broken gods, the bear among the figs but as I spoke, she'd move about and hum as if to say no sights that she and William had not seen were worth the seeing. Only of Gillian I said nothing. I did not even speak her name lest Burcwen should make light of her or rattle turnips in a pot while I spoke of how we parted in the wood. My whole life long I've never told a soul of Gillian for fear to breathe her forth into the world with words would be to risk the world's wind blowing her away.

  Thus weeks passed by of hidden strife between myself and Burcwen. Each longed to be the other's friend, but pride and hurt kept her from me, and fear, I think, kept me from her. I feared the wrong I'd do poor William by wooing off the only friend he had. I feared if she and I grew close again, our parting would be harder still in spring. And most of all I feared my loneliness might make me seek to draw to her too close. I feared myself. And such was home.

  I had no heart to stay and neither heart to leave nor any place to go. And then, by luck or lack of luck, a door to flee through opened up. One Falkes de Granvill came to tarry with my lord a while. He was another Norfolk lord, but rich and mightier yet.

  I came upon them in the church one morning after mass. My lord was full of cheer and with a gloved hand clapped me on the back and made me known to Falkes.

  “Here's freeman Godric, my liege,” he said. “Take note of him. It's plain to see he's no great beauty, but behind those Saxon whiskers lurks a rogue to reckon with. He's sailed the seven seas, he says. He's peddled wares from here to where the world drops off. He's master of a ship that ferries pilgrims to and fro like salted herrings. He's been to Rome. What say you, Godric Kiss the hand of one who, if your press your suit, might prosper you yet more.”

  The hand I kissed was heavy as a bishop's with rings of gold and colored stones. My lord de Granvill was himself a new laid egg. Not a single hair grew on his head and not a whisker on his chin. His brews were painted on with ochre.

  I said, “God prosper you, your worship. For me, I have no suit to press nor look for alms from any man.” I saw I pleased him with the speech I'd hewn out rough to please. His glance was weasel sharp. He spoke our tongue but with a Norman bite.

  He said, “My steward's dead, poor wretch. Saint Andrew's fire took him. My manor wants an eye to see my franchise duly granted, my greenwood free of poaching rogues, and all my tillage justly done. It wants a hand to gather taxes, rents and scutage. My villeins want a foot to kick them sore whenever they stray or nip each other at the trough. Think you the master of a ship can master clods that walk like men and even grunt a human word or two but have plowed and delved and eaten earth so long they're less of flesh than earth themselves?”

  “Shape earth upon a wheel,” I said, “and earth's a pot, your honor. Tread it down hard beneath your feet, and it's a floor. What's a stout wall,” I said, “but earth heaped high? The earth can serve you well enough, my lord. You only need to work it to your will.”

  “The man speaks fair,” de Granvill said, but it would have fitted better if he'd said “speaks foul,” for foul it was to speak not what I truly thought but what I thought he truly wished to hear.

  Shape on a wheel, like earth, poor folk Christ shed his precious blood to save Tread down, like earth, poor souls like Aedlward who grubbed and grubbed until they grubbed for him a grubber's earthy grave at last But Falkes de Granvill was a gate to flee my pain. For passage through, I would have licked his spittle with my tongue.

  He took me by the beard and pulled me close enough to smell the blessed sacrament upon his lips and count the flakes of ochre on his brow.

  He said, “Master Godric, by Christ's eyes, if ever I catch you cozening me, I'll have you flayed. But if you play me true, you'll find my hand as generous as my pate is bare. How say you then?”

  My answer was to crook my knee and swear true fealty. De Granvill said we'd leave in three days' time. As steward, he said, I'd have a steed. He said to trim my beard and eat no onions, for my breath was foul. That done, I could have been a stick of wood for all he marked me. He tied an ermine bonnet underneath his chin, then called my lord to heel, and through the churchyard, past my father's stone, left footprints in the newly fallen snow.

  On the third day at sun up, we were set to go, and what a gaudy sight it was! Baron Falkes was bound from one of his great castles to the next, and you'd have thought he carried with him all except the stones themselves. One sumpter horse was all but lost beneath his bed piled high with sheets, rugs, furs and mattresses. Another hauled his robes and clothes alone. There was a four legged kitchen hung with cauldrons, pans, and all the clanking gear of cookery while, close behind, a chapel with a mane and tail broke wind. Candlesticks it bore and hangings stitched in wool and silk with holy pictures and, across its rump, an ivory Jesu on a wooden cross. Two wheeled carts were heaped with wines and armor. Servants mounted mules.

  De Granvill sat a crop tailed bay up front that pawed the frost and spun. The beast was hot to run, but his master made no move to cool him. Instead, he held him in so tight, his spume was flecked with crimson from the bit. The chaplain and the chamberlain rode near, and nearer yet the falconer who bore a belied and hooded merlin on his wrist. Aedwen and William came to wave farewell. Aedwen tossed me up a sack with two fresh leaves and cheese within. William kissed my hand as if I was a lord. When I asked where Burcwen was, he toed the ground and mumbled in his beard.

  At last a maid came riding on a palfrey draped in silk with serving women trotting at her side. By the stormy frown de Granvill gave, I knew she was the one we waited for. Her face was pale and freckled and her brews so fair I thought at first she lacked them like her lord. Twelve or thirteen winters were the most she could have shivered through, and thus I took her for the baron's child. Later, I found she was his high born Saxon wife, the lady Hedwic.

  The baron spurred his bay so sharp it nearly pitched his bonnet off with leaping forward, and then just as the sun had cleared the tallest oaks, the whole great train of men and beasts and chattels started forth.

  William wept and Aedwen shook to watch me go, but Burcwen never came. She doubtless thought her staying off would wound me worse than any words she might have found to speak. And so it did.

  How Godric served a noble lord.

  REGINALD wakes me from a dream of Farne. He thinks me dead at last and holds a feather to my lips. The tickling fetches me away from where I roam that holy isle whose cliffs are white with feathers of their own. I'd dreamed I watched a rock where seals were gathered in the mist. Their snouts were pointed at th
e sky to tongue their plaintive, whiskered song. The plaint I hear instead is Reginald's.

  “He's gone! He's gone!” he cries. “The holy hermit's breathed his last.”

  “I'll breathe a plague on you,” I say. “I'll thrust your feather down your throat to stop your mewing.

  “Praise God, you live!” cries Reginald.

  I say, “Praise God, I”ll someday see the last of you and die.

  He's here to write his book. He lays his parchment on a stone and dips his quill. “Long ago you served a noble lord,” he says. “Pray tell of that. If you'd stayed on, you could have risen to a lord yourself. Instead, you gave it up and left for love of Christ. Is that not so, Father ”

  “Reach me my cup,” I say, and when he stoops for it, I catch him with my foot. He smiles a crooked, moist eyed smile that makes me flush for shame. I growl and turn my back but suffer him.

  I say, “For love of Christ, I'll tell you what you ask. Perhaps you'll love to hear. Perhaps you won't. When I have done, we'll see. In the meanwhile, dowse your quill in honey, for the truth's a bitter brew.”

  Like Jacob's, my pillow is a stone, and when I raise myself to prop my back on it, my iron vest nips deep into my flesh. The nip's to chasten me and keep me mindful of the crueler nips our Savior bore for us upon the cross, but now it only goads the beast in me. Time and again, with rage, I hurl my back against the stone to punish stone and back as well until my irons clank like hammers on a forge. My beard is stuck with straws from sleeping. My eyes are wild. I clank my flesh so raw I roar with pain. Poor Reginald's aghast and blocks his ears.

  When at last my fit is done, I lie there gasping. My cheeks that age has hollowed out are filled with shade. Deep within their sockets, my eyes are shut. My great snout towers. I feel a cool hand on my brow and just for a moment think it might be hers whom all these years I've only seen in dreams. I open my eyes to see it's only Reginald, and tears run down my face against my will. I cannot hold my blubbering back. Sweet lord, have mercy on old men who've turned to helpless babes again in every way except they loathe their helplessness.