The Hour Before Dawn

by Penelope Wilcock

  John frowned, watching him as he said this. “Are your eyes blue, or are they green?”

  The eyes in question flickered, and humour entered them like a shaft of early sunlight on a winter morning. “I have no idea, my lord abbot. I’ve never looked into them.”

  John turned and mounted his horse. William handed up the reins, then jumped up lightly into his own saddle.

  “Forgive me,” John said before he turned his horse’s head to leave. “I have been so absorbed in my own troubles, I had forgotten yours as if they had never been. I ask your pardon, William. And don’t tell me you don’t mind. You only call me ‘my lord abbot’ when something’s not as it should be. I’m very sorry.”

  William shrugged. “I’m not touchy. You helped me when I had need of it, and I believe you always would. What more would I ask? Come, Father John, it’s evening, let’s go now.”

  They went back the way they had come, crossing the river valley and climbing the incline to the monastery of Poor Clares. The sisters had no ostler, but a man from the village did the heavy outdoor work for them. He came to take their animals back to the stable. William walked with him as John made his way into the guest house.

  “My lord is the abbot at St Alcuin’s, a day’s ride north and high up on the edge of the moors. He is a man of power and consequence and well connected.” William spoke softly to the man as they crossed the sisters’ yard to the small block of stables. “We have been to my abbot’s childhood home today,” he continued quietly. “A godly woman, his mother was, and his sister too. They lived there together, Katelin and Madeleine Hazell. He loved them dearly. They have been set upon. Their house is burned and looted, his mother is dead, his sister deflowered, and she has fled. I imagine you know nothing at all about this. But if you did—if you ever have word of who did this thing—you would be able to tell them that, though my abbot is minded to let this go and seek no revenge, if one hair of his sister’s head is ever harmed again, there will be such hell to pay, those men will wish they had never been born; aye, and their families too. And do not think there would be any hope of mercy or redress. Just as nobody knows what has happened to these women, so nobody would ever know what had happened to them—only that they would have found their journey to hell had been suddenly accelerated. And I am a man of my word. You may believe this absolutely. Thank you kindly. Water them well, but don’t give the grey too much grain.”

  He did not raise his voice, and his manner seemed pleasant enough; and yet the man’s face was pale and his hands shook as William walked away. He had stolen one quick glance into the cold and baleful glow of William’s eyes, and what he heard and saw entirely convinced him.

  In the guest house, Sister Mary Cuthbert attended kindly to their wants. She had heated some water for them to wash after their ride through the river valley, and some hearty soup with herb dumplings. William eyed his superior toying abstractedly with his food. “Eat it,” he said, “or give it to me.”

  John managed a smile and an apology and addressed himself dutifully to the food he had been given.

  Then they sat in the deep stone peace of the chapel, on the rough, low benches there, each with his own thoughts as the time for Vespers drew near, which was when Mary Beatrix begged a celebrant for the morning’s morrow Mass.

  “What about the parish Mass?” William asked her.

  “God reward you for your concern, but here we have only one Mass on a weekday. It is not the same here as in an abbey with many priested men.”

  He nodded. “Of course. It is a privilege, and, Mother, we feel your kindness to us keenly, and we are more than grateful.”

  Mary Beatrix’s shrewd eyes appraised him with interest for one brief moment. She liked his courtesy and appreciated his protective loyalty to his superior. She wondered if all that had reached her ears concerning this man had been true. She smiled at him.

  “We are glad of the chance to do what little we can to help,” she responded. She made him a small bow of farewell, then lowered her eyes and turned back to her stall to start the office.

  The guest house offered simple accommodation: one long room of stone walls and bare rafters, big enough for six low wooden cots with blankets, warm but far from soft, that the sisters had spun and woven from fleeces they could not sell. The walls were mercifully free from damp this near the solstice of a dry year; even so, shafts of the morning sun always exposed an unmistakably greenish tinge. William felt relieved to find they were the only guests, and so did Sister Mary Cuthbert, seeing that most of their visitors were women.

  He was glad too that John acquiesced to the sisters’ leaving them undisturbed through the offices of the night. Their night proved to have disturbance enough of its own. John tossed and turned and started awake sweating. William, a light sleeper always, was there at his side when needed, and he was glad when the sun finally rose at about four o’clock.

  The day found John haggard and weary, exhausted from more grief than he could bear.

  William said the Mass and insisted that John break his fast with a cup of hot milk and honey, even if he could not face the fresh and fragrant bread Mary Cuthbert had set out for them.

  The hired man, sullen, dour, and wary, had saddled their horses. William thanked the sisters and gave them a generous gift of money, both for their care and for Madeleine’s keep.

  Sister Mary Cuthbert listened to the clatter of horseshoes as they rode out, and she murmured a Hail Mary for travelling mercies, then exclaimed “Drat! I had that handkerchief laundered all ready, and I forgot to give it back!”

  The road up into the hills lay wild and peaceful. The two men covered half the distance before midday without any undue haste. John remained pensive, his face set in hard lines of hopelessness, and William left him to his thoughts as they passed through farmland and woodland, by streams that sparkled over stony beds and gurgled around mossed boulders. When the sun was high and he judged the horses could do with a rest, William waited for a place with grass lush enough to offer helpful grazing, a stream low enough to lead their beasts to drink, and an oak tree with ample canopy to afford them some shade.

  Neither of these animals would wander. As the men slipped down from their saddles and stretched cramped muscles, William pulled off the bridles and left them to crop the grass. He carried the pack of food Sister Mary Cuthbert had given them to where John had found shelter from the midday sun in the cool green shadow of the oak leaves.

  “I am finished,” said John, his voice dull, his eyes staring hopelessly at nothing. He sat slumped against the tree, with no interest in the fruit and cheese William had set out for him. “Whatever I once was good for, I no longer am. I’m completely finished.”

  William looked up from carefully tearing in two the loaf the sisters had given them. He stopped what he was doing, remaining motionless and silent until John’s attention was caught. He could not read the look in William’s eyes, but he had to listen when William spoke to him.

  “No, you are not finished. When they bind your limbs with ropes to the wheel, and you hear them urge the horses on, you are finished. When they put a bag over your head so the executioner doesn’t have to look you in the eyes, you are finished. When you glance down and see the first flames curling up from the fagots and the smoke is in your nostrils, you are finished. When the man who walks toward you in the forest with a knife in his hand laughs because he sees you are afraid, you may well be finished. This is not what being finished is. This is you having a bad day because you feel upset and guilty about your mother and because Madeleine is as trapped in her grief as you are in yours. That’s valid, as far as it goes, as a feeling.” William directed his attention to the bread again and finished dividing it. “But to say you are finished is simply incorrect as a fact. You have the same skills and experiences as ever—and the same duties. Shirking your responsibilities because you are half out of your wits with grief is a self-indulgence an abbot cannot afford. Take your time to rage and weep and whatever else you h
ave to do today—after that you must pick yourself up and carry on. One of the great challenges of being human is that long after a man concludes he has finished with life, he discovers to his dismay that unfortunately life has not finished with him. Here—take this: eat it. Eat your bread. No, truly—even if you don’t want it, eat your bread. There’s no way to dodge this pain, but you don’t have to wallow in it. Bread has strength in it, and strength you’re going to need. Eat!”

  John obediently took the bread pressed into his hand.

  “All right, I’m eating it!” he said as William sat watching him.

  “And some cheese. And you can share this apple with me.”

  John ate, and he drank some of the ale they had been given. William shook out the crumbs from the cloth when their meal was done and carefully folded it away.

  For a while silence reigned as the two men stretched out and rested there by the side of the road, while their horses cropped the grass and herbs that grew alongside the track. The warmth of the day felt sleepy and still. Crickets chirped, and bees were busy among the flowers, but no more than the odd scintillas and ringlets of birdsong drifted coquettishly to beautify the languid air. A lazy afternoon.

  Into the peace between them, John gave voice to something that was starting to bother him.

  “What was the reverend mother’s name? Faith, why can’t I remember? I can’t seem to… can you remember her name, William?”

  William turned his head and eyed his abbot calmly, observing his distress as his battered mind failed to do what he wanted it to do.

  “I’m not completely sure,” he responded, “but I think it might have been Mary.”

  Trying to make this fit, John eyed him with the expression of a puzzled child. “Mary? You think? But…”

  “Yes,” said William. “Never mind. She was Mother Mary Beatrix, Father John.”

  The day was peaceful and sunny, and here on the edge of the wood nothing could be heard but birdsong and insects and the faint stirring of the trees. For a moment William forgot his anxieties at being away from the abbey. He lay on his back in the grass, aware that his habit was getting damp and not caring, watching the clouds pass, and thinking nothing more edifying than Sister Mary Mildew… Sister Mary Mandrake… Sister Mary Magpie… Sister Mary Mosaic… Sister Mary Millipede… Sister Mary Motheaten… Sister Mary Meticulous… Sister Mary Matchless Magnificent… Sister Mary Might… Sister Mary Mightnot. “I’m sorry, Father, did you speak to me? Yes, surely. We can be on our way just as soon as you’re ready.”

  Both of them felt drowsy, and their muscles ached from more time in the saddle than they were accustomed to, but the sun was well past its height and the day passing.

  As they took the road again, John remained taciturn, absorbed in his thoughts. William rode beside him, making no attempt to break the brooding silence.

  Eventually his abbot asked him, “Is your mother still alive, William?”

  “I have no idea,” William answered him calmly. “I have not inquired.”

  “You mean she—she might be still alive and you not know? And not care? Your mother?”

  “Yes. Yes, that is what I meant.”

  William did not turn his head to look at John’s wordless incredulity, though he could certainly feel it. They rode on together without speaking for another mile.

  “Your mother—” John broke the silence. “You did not—do not—love her?”

  “Brilliant deduction.”

  William knew this was discourteous and thought he had better amend it.

  “She was not good to me. Neither of my parents was. We were not wealthy, but we certainly were not poor. They were just not kind people. I was often cold, often hungry, often beaten. Beaten for forgetting things, beaten for dropping things, beaten if I was clumsy with food or late or rude or inattentive. Sometimes they beat me because they were drunk or had nothing else to do. I recall one splendid occasion when I was beaten because I’d got blood on the sheet of my bed from having been beaten. And I never would know if I deserved any supper—oh, it was miserable. I’ve found many assets in being a man of God, but the chief of them must be the consolation of knowing that if I go to heaven then for sure I won’t see either of the merciless, spiteful bullies that begot me, there.”

  A small, mirthless half smile twisted his face as he darted a sideways glance at his abbot. He bent forward and patted his palfrey’s neck.

  “Don’t look so shocked, my father. It’s the way of the world. It’s commonplace. You must know that.”

  “How long did this go on?” asked John.

  “Each beating? What do you mean?”

  “I mean, for how much of your childhood?”

  “Oh, I see.” William, quietly considering, searched back for a time when he might have been simply allowed to be. “All of it that I can remember. Somebody must have nursed me as an infant, and whether that was my mother or a wet nurse I do not know. I have no memory of it. I remember only violence. And loneliness.”

  John shook his head, appalled and horrified. “Did nobody at all try to stop this? Did no one intervene?”

  “Not as far as I know. Why would they? What grown man or woman ever takes the side of a child? And even the child—it becomes impossible to know when blame is deserved and when it is not. You can just assume it will be woven into the fabric of everything.”

  A rabbit dashed across their path, zigzagging, diving into the tangle of brambles that edged the way. To their left among the trees, a heavy bird, maybe a rook or a wood pigeon, startled and flapped as it took off in flight. A small cart pulled by a mule rumbled and rattled along the way toward them, and for a short distance they went single file to pass it by.

  Clouds had gathered, their shadows travelling across the rising and dipping landscape as they crossed the sky.

  “I think,” said Abbot John, “I am coming to understand you a little better than I once did.”

  “People understand me well enough,” his companion replied. “A man is as his actions and choices are, not what is done to him.”

  “Is it as simple as that? Someone who is bullied will often become a bully in his own turn.” William turned his face aside from the gentleness in John’s voice, and John did not catch his mumbled reply. “What did you say?”

  “I said, you hardly need to tell me that. I’ve already found it out for myself. But please can we talk about something else now? Neither my character nor my mother’s is edifying to reflect upon. Talk to me about your mother. Tell me about your home.”

  Another rabbit started right in front of them, and William’s palfrey shied in alarm. John observed William as he soothed her, bending forward to whisper quietly. Her ears moved in response to his words of reassurance. Something about him told John of a well of unexpressed tenderness. An animal cannot bond with coldness or cruelty, and this palfrey was readily pacified under his handling. She trusted him.

  “She’s a fine creature, that palfrey of yours,” John said as he watched William settle her.

  “She’s a sound animal, but she isn’t mine.”

  Once he had her quieted, William spoke to her softly, and they walked on. “She belonged to St Dunstan’s before and to St Alcuin’s now. I cannot call her my own.”

  “Oh, I agree with you, but I’m not sure she does.”

  William heard this but would not be drawn. “Tell me,” he said again, turning his questioning gaze in his abbot’s direction. “Tell me about your family and the life you lived at Motherwell.”

  In the presence of one whose own upbringing had been so bleak and starved of love, John hardly liked to reminisce on a childhood home that had been a cheerful sanctuary of kindness. But William seemed composed, unmoved by the memories of his own childhood.

  For the rest of their journey home, John relived the past. To his surprise, he found that the recapture of what had been wholesome and good brought him comfort and a measure of peace. It restored a sense of sanity and ordinary well-being. He felt his eq
uilibrium begin to reestablish.

  William listened to him without interruption, neither affirming nor commenting, just letting the comforting recollections do their healing work.

  As the hooves of their beasts clattered on the cobbled expanse before the abbey gates, John felt drained and weary but no longer as bruised and fragmented as he had felt before. “Brother, thank you for your wise care of me; you have done me good, and I am indebted to you. God bless you,” he said as Brother Martin swung open the great gate for them and they rode in. “Thank you, Brother Martin!” he called as they swung down from their saddles. “It’s good to be home.”

  William made no reply to his abbot’s words, but as he took the reins of their mounts and led them away to their stable, his face was content. He had managed what he had set out to do.

  Chapter Three

  “I have brought our abbot back safe if not exactly in one piece.”

  Brother Michael turned, his face concerned and attentive, finished drying his hands, and hung the linen towel neatly on the rack to air as he came to listen to what William had to say. “Tell me more.”

  “It was not a happy visit, nor did we expect it to be, but… the dam broke at any rate. I would never have believed a man had so much water in him, and—” William broke off suddenly, and his expression changed. “Dag nab it! I left one of our handkerchiefs on the floor of the Poor Clares’ parlour. It was very wet.” He frowned, irritated with himself. Linen was not for throwing away.

  “Madeleine… how did she seem? She and John—they were a comfort to one another?”

  William’s short, hard laugh of derision dispelled this line of thinking. “No. He could not comfort her, and she would not comfort him. Far from it. She held him responsible.”

  Michael’s face puckered in bewilderment. What? His mouth silently shaped the word.

  “Aye. Because he was not there for them, so they were two women alone. For sure that did not help their cause, but that’s the way of the world. Nay, the violation and fear and grief had all turned outward in fury and resentment. It was not a good meeting. She reduced him to something very small and soggy indeed. That, with his own grief beside, almost annihilated him, I think. I have done what I could to put him back together, with assurance that he is not to blame and a certain amount of stern talking to on the way home, stressing that the community needs him and weeping has its time but has an end. Seems hard, I know, but I think he was on the point of dissolving. A man needs some iron in his soul to stand upright in some passes. He needed a break from his anguish, I thought. I hope I’ve done right. Be that as it may, he’s well weary, and as disinclined as when we went away for human company. But he has returned resolved to stand steadfast and put in hand the work that waits for him here. We should keep watch, though. He has been in torment that has flung him about until he hardly knew who he was anymore. He has been entirely distraught. He may master it, but then again it could overwhelm him. We’ll have to respect his need for privacy, but mayhap he should not be left too much alone.”