Godric

by Frederick Buechner

  I forget why Reginald has come until he speaks. “You were going to tell me of the noble lord, Father,” he says. For once I'm glad to think of Falkes de Granvill as a thought less grievous than the one I set aside to speak of him.

  “The noble motto of that noble lord was this,” I say, “and often have I heard it on his lips. 'Base born folk, like willows, sprout better for being cropped.' Such was the noble law he ruled his manor by. My task, as steward, was to see it carried out.

  “With notches on a stick I kept account of lands and fiefs. I had a clerk to list the acres each man tilled and in what crops. I tallied up the rents and days of service each man owed, the fines. I tramped through barnyards to make sure the beasts were duly kept and fattened. Each night I met with cook and pantler to oversee the food brought in to serve my lord at table on the following day. So many fowl, so many joints, so many leaves and quarts of beer. The beef was sliced up in my sight and counted out lest, while we slept, some hungry rogue would thieve a bit.

  “Once when sixteen eggs were missing, it fell to me to sniff the robber out, and later it was I again who sat as judge in manor court and handed down the noble justice of my lord. The wretch was ordered flogged and hanged. His wife was there, her belly great with child. She seized his feet and tried to swing from them to cut his suffering short. 'The rope's not stout enough for three,' de Granvill said and bade the hangman pull her down.

  It's Reginald's turn to weep. “The law's the law, he says, ”but was there no mercy in the baron's heart to temper it?“

  “The willow sprouts from being cropped,” I say. “I saw the cropping duly done.”

  “Had he no love in him? No tenderness?” Reginald's face is not a face for showing grief. His mouth's instead for godly, monkish smiles.

  I say, “He loved the land. What Norman doesn't? For land is might, and might is wealth, and wealth is swords and Norman keeps to guard the land. He loved the hunt as well. You should have seen him at it.”

  “Ah, then there was some good in him,” says Reginald. He can't allow that any man be wholly bad, for where's God's image if we're rotten to the core? Maybe he's right. Maybe in the greenwood, giving chase, some all but snuffed out spark of God flamed up in Falkes.

  He loved his dogs at least, his sweet tongued hounds and silken brachets. He loved his mounts. His quarry too I think he even honored in his way the fallow deer, the harts, the boars with tusks so sharp I've seen them slit a man from knee to breast with one great stroke. Many a time I've watched his courtly gallop through the trees, his bald head glittering like a helm, his richest garments on his back, as if he rode to bring a royal prince to bay. He'd raise to his lips his ivory horn, the oliphant, and blow a string of high pitched notes to mind his huntsmen to unleash the hounds. I've seen him with an arrow to the depth of one hand slantwise in his flesh yet smile as if it was no price too high to see a noble, antlered head brought low.

  “And his lady wife” says Reginald. “He surely must have loved her too.”

  “He loved the hope of sons. He had no heir,” I said. “She was only a child herself, but they say that every night and morn he'd grimly lie with her that she might bring forth children though behind his back they jested that a beard was not the only part of manhood that he lacked. I know only that her pale young face grew paler yet each time she laid her eyes on him. The lady Hedwic's griefs were many, and once she spoke to me of them.”

  “If it please you, the lady's name again” says Reginald. His quill is poised. If God had come to Reginald and not to Moses in the burning bush, he would have asked him how to spell the great I AM so he'd be sure he had it right.

  “Hedwic,” I said. “A Saxon name like Godric, monk, though what it means I neither know nor care. But what she meant was plain enough. We were feasting side by side at the high table in my lord's great hall. Candles set on spikes lit up the walls. The hearth was blazing. All around us lords and ladies stuffed like swine while servants staggered under loads of meat to stuff them more. Minstrels played on pipes and lutes, and dogs at war for scraps made music of their own beneath the board. My lord had left his massive chair. His lady wife and I were by ourselves there on the bench. She touched my sleeve.

  “Look at the floor, Godric,” she said in her thin child's voice. I looked and saw it freshly strewn with rushes.

  She said, “My lord this morning bade me tell the chamberlain to have them sweeten it with herbs against the feast, and so I did. They scattered lavender and mint and winter savory all about till now it's fit for royal feet. And pennyroyal too, that makes me think. I doubt if there's a sweeter floor in all of Christendom. But, Godric, do you know what's underneath?”

  I shook my head. I thought the wine had made her giddy the way she closed her eyes and shivered. But when she opened them again, I saw that wine was not the cause. If we'd met as simply man and child, I'd have taken her upon my knee and tried to lullaby the pain away.

  “What's underneath is turds of dogs and grease and spit and bits of bone,” she said. “The part you see is fair and fresh. The part you do not see is foul. Do you know what it reminds me of, this floor?” Again I shook my head though I had guessed her meaning well enough.

  “My life,” she said, and hid her face.

  I can't forget the bitter tale she whispered then. The lustless lust for heirs that had the baron harshly mounting her before she'd even started in to bleed as women do. The way he decked her out in silk and precious stones yet treated her like dung. The way he mocked her father for a thick skulled Saxon dunce for giving twice the dower he'd have settled on. Her loneliness. Her shame. Her sin. “For surely it's a mortal sin,” she said, “to hate him as I do and hate myself for hating him. I'd shake with fear of Hell except I think I'm there already as the Devil's bride. Godric, do you know the very food we eat is hellish ”

  “My lady must be calm,” I said, but she was past such soothing.

  “They say it's venison,” she said. “I know it's not. His huntsmen take the deer they slay and line their pockets with the coins they sell them for. They steal the poor folk's sheep and once they're flayed and stripped pass them for deer instead. Right now my belly's full of meat some poor man starves for want of. Oh Godric, are we damned for fattening on another's sin and never breathing out a word to set it right?”

  “Poor child,” says Reginald, “yet wiser than a child to cut sin up so fine.”

  “Say rather it was Godric that she cut,” I say, “and cut him to the bone, poor child, though she never meant me harm. I saw that it was truly I that fattened on De Granvill's baseness.

  What a net of sin I'd gotten tangled in. For weeks, unknowingly, I'd eaten food from the mouths of folk with scarcely food enough to keep alive, and now I knew, I no more dared to tell my lord than Hedwic did. Either he would have me flayed for speaking false or have his huntsmen hanged for thievery, and either way he'd find some means of adding to his lady's woes. So part from fear for me and part from charity for them, I held my tongue. My silence made me party to their sin as well. Nor was that all, for every day I cropped to make de Granvill's willows sprout, my other guilt grew heavier with my purse. Working for him, I worked my own damnation, aided his, and made the Hell of those I cropped more hellish still. And Hedwic's too.

  She looked to me, her only friend, for help, and I had none to give except for words. “Hold fast to Christ,” I said, and she to me, “In Hell, you are the only Christ I have,” but like Our Lord's upon the cross, my hands were nailed. I also feared that seeing us together overmuch, de Granvill would be harsh with her for bringing shame upon his rank. So for love of her I wounded her by keeping from her sight, and thus my love stung both of us like hate.

  At last I formed a plan. One winter's eve I sought the baron in his chamber and begged a word with him. He was holding a plate of burnished silver on his knees so he could see to paint his brews with ochre from a pot. I suppose he meant, for vanity, to make himself more fair before he went in to his wife. He wore a lambs
kin cap against the cold. I'd thought my words out well and spoke them carefully. The chief thing was to name no names.

  The rumor was, I said, that certain men were stealing villeins' sheep. Knowing him to be a just and Christian lord, I said, I knew he'd want to stop such sport. A general word some night from the high table would be enough to frighten them. Then God would bless him, and the poor would bless him too and serve him all the better for his charity.

  I waited full of dread to hear what he would say. If my counsels rubbed him sore, there was no telling where his wrath might strike. He might press me to tell him who the robbers were and then make bloody work o~ them. Or I might be the one he'd bloody with the knout the way I've seen him have the flesh flogged off men's backs till you could count their slippery ribs beneath. Or might he guess that Hedwic was the one whose tender heart had made her broach the matter to me first Such awesome risks as these I ran, and ran them most, I think, for Aedlward's sake and all poor folk whose paltry sheep are all the meat they have.

  The noble lord thrust his brush back in the pot and scowled. A cup of wine stood by him, and he took a draught, but even as he drank, he kept his eyes on mine. Then he wiped his lips, tossed back his head, and laughed so loud the stone walls cast his laughter back at him.

  “Poor dolts!” he cried. “You could steal their women right beneath them in the act. They'd never know. Maybe a ewe or two the less will screw their wits a turn or two the more.”

  Again he roared with mirth and wine, and only when he'd finished did I try to speak again. But this time his roar was of another sort. He struck the board so hard his winecup danced. “Go hawk your wares some other place, peddler Godric!” he cried, and I withdrew before he cast me out.

  Later that night I left his hall for good. I had sins enough already on my head. To stay could only load me down with more. So off I stole in moonless dark. As I passed beneath the chamber where I knew the lady Hedwic lay, I heard her weeping like a child. And thus my very flight from sin was sin itself, to take from her the only hope she had.

  When I end my tale I mark that Reginald has gone and know the reason why. Sometimes when I think I'm speaking words that all can hear, it's only in my head I speak. My jaw flaps shut and open like a windy door, but not a sound comes forth. So why should Reginald stay to watch my noiseless gabbling? Indeed, why should he come at all to ask me questions when he's sure already of the truth He's sure that Falkes de Granvill, as a noble lord, was ever noble. He's sure that Godric never would have left save for the love of Christ. Thus like a child that fashions poppets out of muck, a monk makes saints of flesh and blood.

  Reginald is gathering sticks beside the Wear. I am alone. I close my eyes and pray the current of some dream will drift me back to hear again the seals' sweet song.

  Of the rescue of a King and a cruel farewell.

  AH Mouse! How good it was to meet with you that spring! How good to feel the sea beneath my feet again instead of Norman stone even though the feet were Deric's that I stood upon!

  “By good Saint Peter's pizzle!” you said. “You look as frazzled as a monk I know who tupped his way through a whole house of nuns beginning with the abbess.”

  At first I hardly knew you for your patch. A tavern brawl, you said. But one eye left, you said, was all it took to spot a plump pursed pilgrim or a maid who'd do it free.

  “And what of you, old Deric mine” you asked. “How many have you laid with since the last we met?”

  “Not even one,” I said. J lied, for there was one, but I'd have sooner died than speak of her. I dared not tell you how she chastely crept beneath my cloak that night. I could not name to you my wonder as I watched her face turned marble by the moon for fear you'd bare your crooked teeth in mirth. It's less the words they say than those they leave unsaid that split old friends apart.

  Yet say for sure we had our sport still, you and I, even that last year we sailed as mates. We drank our pints. We sang our songs. On windless nights we'd lie out on the decks of Saint Esprit and live again through many times we'd had. We spoke of how a great wave washed me overboard, and if you'd not leaped in and seized me by the beard, my bones would be a cage for fishes now. We spoke of loutish Colin chasing us with murder in his eye through Portsmouth streets. I brought to mind the day we drank ourselves so daft with beer we thought that if we spread our arms and flapped, we'd fly like birds then flapped into a ditch. And yet there was a sadness too that hid in all we said.

  When friends speak overmuch of times gone by, often it's because they sense their present time is turning them from friends to strangers. Long before the moment came to say goodbye, I think, we said goodbye in other words and ways and silences. Then when the moment came for it at last, we didn't say it as it should be said by friends. So now at last, dear Mouse, with many, many years between: goodbye.

  We'd sailed the farthest that we ever had with a band of pilgrims bound to see the holiest city of them all, Jerusalem. Mouse had urged we fall on them like pirates on the way, but I said no. To send them robbed and penniless to worship at the tomb of Christ seemed even to Deric sin too deep. Mouse swore and grumbled, but he let me have my will. The winds of spring were fair, and we made good time to Arsuf, where we put in at the port for drink. It was a fateful day.

  A great battle had been newly fought between the Frankish knights and heathen Turks. The Franks were far outnumbered, and the nearby fields of Ramleh were as thick with corpses as de Granvill's floor with herbs. Arsuf was in a state of terror and misrule. Women and children flew about like birds before a gale. Strong men made haste to flee, their camels loaded down with all they owned. The Turks had left a Christian church in flames, and smoke had turned the daylit streets to dusk. Looters broke the walls of shops and scattered what they could not carry off. Thus fruit and meat and costly wares were trampled underfoot.

  Infidels in colored robes and yards of cloth wound round their heads set up a fearful keening in the square. A madman in a tower screamed some gibberish down that set the folk below to groveling with their noses in the dust. Mouse and I had each a great skin filled with water on our backs and were lust about to load them in the cockboat when we heard a voice behind us cry, “God wills it!” in a voice of brass. We turned to see a sight that still is fresh.

  A tall knight sat astride a charger deep of chest and richly decked with plaques of silver, plaited mane, and leather fringe. He wore a scarlet mantle with a coronet of gold upon his brow. His beard and hair were fair and overflowed his breast. His face was stern and battle stained. One arm was wrapped with cloth the blood seeped through.

  “God wills you take me on your craft!” he cried. “Jaffa is in peril, Jerusalem's port. If I'm not there, it falls for sure. Jerusalem then falls next and all our work undone. The ungodly Turk will foul the places sacred to Our Lord. I alone am left alive by God's good grace to save this day. I am de Bouilion's brother. Baldwin is my name. Under Christ, I am Jerusalem's king.”

  “Then haste to stow your royal bum aboard!” cried Mouse, and so he did. If horses weep, his charger wept with nostrils flared and piercing wail to watch us row his master to the Saint Esprit, where huddled pilgrims crouched in fear of death.

  How far away that time, and yet how near. I see the king stand bleeding at the mast. I watch the sail fill up with wind. I hear gulls cry. And through a pair of ragged Saxon rogues, God's will is done.

  The harbor of Jaffa is ringed around with clumsy Turkish craft, but the Saint Esprit slips through them like an eel. King Baldwin speaks no further word to Mouse and me but does a courtly deed. He draws his sword and holds the jeweled hilt to his lips. Its shape is like the cross of Christ. He kisses it and motions us to kneel. He takes it then and touches each of us upon the brow. Back on our feet again, he clasps us in his arms like brothers, and when we come apart our cheeks as well as his are wet with royal tears.

  We row him into shore. The city throbs with life again to have its kingly heart back beating in its breast. It holds the Turks a
t bay till fresh troops come. Jerusalem is saved.

  And so God willed. I cannot think he willed what happened next, and yet who knows? Sin and grace go hand in hand, they say, and the time had come for sin to take its turn. The pilgrims all had paid us dear to sail them there, and they were hot to set their feet at last on holy soil. Then Mouse brewed up a cunning scheme.

  He told them that the price they'd paid had been to bring them safe to anchor here, and anchored now and safe they duly were. Thus was our bargain kept. But between our anchorage and shore, he said, a watery way was still to go. Nor was it meet that we should row them in for nought. So for one further service, it was only just there be one further fee to pay, and the sum he named was half what they'd already paid to carry them across the whole vast sea. Unless they'd rather swim ashore, he said. If so, they'd better arm themselves with steel, for May, he warned, was when sea serpents hungered most for Christian flesh. The pilgrims wept and shook their fists and prayed. Then I took Mouse aside.

  Praise God, I have not kept in mind the words we spoke. I chided him for dealing thus with poor and godly folk when the touch of Baldwin's sword was fresh still on our brews. I vowed I'd have no part in it. I said we'd grown already fat enough on pilfering, and if he ravened yet for more, I'd let him wolf my share.

  Mouse swore that I had played him false. He told me just because I hadn't tupped a maid for all those months, I thought I was some kind of gelded saint. He mocked and cursed at me. He blessed the day he'd lost his eye so he had but one left to view my treachery. Words sprouted blows. Soon we were battling on the deck.

  I struck him on the face and split his lip. He seized a pin and clouted me so hard I could not see for blood. The pilgrim women cried for help. The timbers creaked beneath our scuffling feet. The end came when he took me in his arms, and if he'd dashed me to the boards, I'd lie there rotting yet. Instead he raised me high above his head, then slowly spun me once around and heaved me headlong in the sea.