by Ken Follett
The abbey today was a long way from that ideal. Aldred’s superiors did not share his ambitions. Abbot Osmund was amiable and lazy. He had been good to Aldred, promoting him young, but that was mainly because he knew that once he had given Aldred a job he could consider it done, and need exert himself no further. Osmund would go along with any proposal that did not require him to do any work. More stubborn opposition would come from the treasurer, Hildred, who was against any proposal that required spending, as if the mission of the monastery was saving up money, rather than bringing enlightenment to the world.
Perhaps Osmund and Hildred had been sent by God to teach Aldred patience.
Aldred was not completely alone in his hopes. Among monks generally there was a long-standing movement for reform of old institutions that had slipped into idleness and self-indulgence. Many beautiful new manuscript books were being produced in Winchester, Worcester, and Canterbury. But the drive for improvement had not yet reached Shiring Abbey.
Aldred sang:
Now we must honor the guardian of heaven
The work of the father of glory
He stopped suddenly, seeing a man appear on the path in front of him.
Aldred had not even observed where he came from. He wore no shoes on his filthy feet, he was clad in rags, and he wore a rusty iron battle helmet that hid most of his face. A bloody rag tied around his upper arm evidenced a recent wound. He stood in the middle of the path, blocking Aldred’s way. He might have been a poor homeless beggar, but he looked more like an outlaw.
Aldred’s heart sank. He should not have taken the risk of traveling alone. But this morning, in the alehouse at Mudeford Crossing, there had been no one going his way, and he had yielded to impatience and set off, instead of waiting a day or more until he could proceed with others in a group.
Now he reined in. It was important not to appear afraid, as with a dangerous dog. Trying to keep his voice calm, he said: “God bless you, my son.”
The man replied in a hoarse tone, and the thought crossed Aldred’s mind that he might be disguising his voice. “What kind of priest are you?”
Aldred’s haircut, with a shaved patch at the top of his head, indicated a man of God, but that might mean anything from a lowly acolyte up. “I’m a monk of Shiring Abbey.”
“Traveling alone? Aren’t you afraid of being robbed?”
Aldred was afraid of being murdered. “No one can rob me,” he said with false confidence. “I have nothing.”
“Except for that box.”
“The box isn’t mine. It belongs to God. A fool might rob God, of course, and condemn his soul to eternal damnation.” Aldred spotted another man half hidden by a bush. Even if he had been inclined to make a fight of it, he could not take on two of them.
The ruffian said: “What’s in the box?”
“Eight holy books.”
“Valuable, then.”
Aldred imagined the man knocking at the door of a monastery and offering to sell a book. He would be flogged for his cheek, and the book would be confiscated. “Valuable perhaps to someone who could sell them without arousing suspicion,” Aldred said. “Are you hungry, my son? Do you want some bread?”
The man seemed to hesitate, then said defiantly: “I don’t need bread, I need money.”
The hesitation told Aldred that the man was hungry. Food might satisfy him. “I have no money to give you.” This was true, technically: the money in Aldred’s purse belonged to Shiring Abbey.
The man seemed lost for words, not sure how to respond to the unexpected turn the conversation had taken. After a pause he said: “A man could sell a horse easier than a box of books.”
“He could,” said Aldred. “But someone might say: ‘Brother Aldred had a pony with a white cross on its forehead, just like that, so where did you get this beast, friend?’ And what would the thief say to that?”
“You’re a clever one.”
“And you’re a bold one. But you’re not stupid, are you? You’re not going to murder a monk for the sake of eight books and a pony, none of which you can sell.” Aldred decided this was the moment to end the interchange. With his heart in his mouth he urged Dismas forward.
The outlaw stood his ground for a moment or two then stepped aside, faltering with indecision. Aldred rode past him, pretending indifference.
Once past, he was tempted to kick Dismas into a trot, but that would have betrayed his fear, so he forced himself to let the pony walk slowly away. He was shaking, he realized.
Then the man said: “I would like some bread.”
That was a plea that a monk could not ignore. It was Aldred’s holy duty to give food to the hungry. Jesus himself had said: “Feed my lambs.” Aldred had to obey, even at the risk of his life. He reined in.
He had half a loaf and a wedge of cheese in his saddlebag. He took out the bread and gave it to the outlaw, who immediately tore off a piece and crammed it into his mouth, stuffing it through the hole in his decrepit helmet. Clearly he was starving.
“Share it with your friend,” Aldred said.
The other man came out of the bushes, hood pulled half over his face so that Aldred could hardly see him.
The first man looked reluctant, but broke the loaf and shared it.
The other muttered from behind his hand: “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, thank God who sent me.”
“Amen.”
Aldred gave him the cheese. “Share that, too.”
While they were dividing the cheese, Aldred rode away.
A minute later he looked behind and saw no sign of the outlaws. He was safe, it seemed. He sent up a prayer of thanks.
He might have to go hungry tonight, but he could put up with that, grateful that today God had asked him to sacrifice his dinner but not his life.
The afternoon softened into evening. Eventually he saw across the water a hamlet of half a dozen houses and a church. To the west of the houses was a cultivated field that stretched along the north bank of the river.
Some kind of boat was tied up on the other side. Aldred had never been to Dreng’s Ferry—he had taken a different route on his outward journey—but he guessed this was the place. He dismounted and shouted over the water.
Presently a girl appeared. She untied the boat, got in, and began to paddle across. She was well fed but plain-looking, Aldred saw as she came closer, and she wore a grumpy expression. When she was within earshot he said: “I am Brother Aldred of Shiring Abbey.”
“My name is Cwenburg,” she responded. “This ferry belongs to my father, Dreng. So does the alehouse.”
So Aldred was in the right place.
“It’s a farthing to cross,” she said. “But I can’t take a horse.”
Aldred could see that. The crude boat would capsize easily. He said: “Don’t worry, Dismas will swim.”
He paid his farthing. He unloaded the pony and put the box of books and the saddle in the boat. He held the reins as he boarded and sat down, then tugged gently to encourage Dismas into the water. For a moment the horse hesitated, as if he might resist. “Come on,” Aldred said reassuringly, and at the same moment Cwenburg pushed away from the bank; then Dismas walked into the water. As soon as it got deep he began to swim. Aldred kept hold of the reins. He did not think Dismas would try to escape, but there was no point in taking the chance.
As they crossed the river Aldred said to Cwenburg: “How far is it from here to Shiring?”
“Two days.”
Aldred looked at the sky. The sun was low. There was a long evening ahead, but he might not find another place to stay before dark. He had better spend the night here.
They reached the other side, and Aldred picked up the distinctive smell of brewing.
Dismas found his feet. Aldred released the reins and the pony climbed the riverbank, shook himself vigorously
to get rid of the water soaking his coat, and then began to crop the summer grass.
Another girl came out of the alehouse. She was about fourteen, with black hair and blue eyes, and despite her youth she was pregnant. She might have been pretty but she did not smile. Aldred was shocked to see that she wore no headdress of any kind. A woman showing her hair was normally a prostitute.
“This is Blod,” said Cwenburg. “Our slave.” Blod said nothing. “She speaks Welsh,” Cwenburg added.
Aldred unloaded his box from the ferry and set it down on the riverbank, then did the same with his saddle.
Blod picked up his box helpfully. He watched her uneasily, but she just carried it into the alehouse.
A man’s voice said: “You can fuck her for a farthing.”
Aldred turned. The newcomer had emerged from a small building that was probably a brewhouse, and the source of the strong smell. In his thirties, he was the right age to be Cwenburg’s father. He was tall and broad-shouldered, reminding Aldred vaguely of Wynstan, the bishop of Shiring, and Aldred seemed to remember hearing that Dreng was Wynstan’s cousin. However, Dreng walked with a limp.
He looked speculatively at Aldred, through eyes set narrowly on either side of a long nose. He smiled insincerely. “A farthing is cheap,” he added. “She was a penny when she was fresh.”
“No,” said Aldred.
“No one wants her. It’s because she’s pregnant, the stupid cow.”
Aldred could not let that pass. “I expect she’s pregnant because you prostitute her, in defiance of God’s laws.”
“She enjoys it, that’s her trouble. Women only get pregnant when they enjoy it.”
“Do they?”
“Everyone knows that.”
“I don’t know it.”
“You don’t know anything about that sort of thing, do you? You’re a monk.”
Aldred tried to swallow the insult in a Christlike way. “That’s true,” he said and bowed his head.
Showing humility in the face of insults sometimes had the effect of making the insulter too ashamed to go on, but Dreng seemed immune to shame. “I used to have a boy—he might have interested you,” he said. “But he died.”
Aldred looked away. He was sensitive to this accusation because in his youth he had suffered from just that kind of temptation. As a novice at Glastonbury Abbey he had been passionately fond of a young monk called Brother Leofric. What they did was only boyish fooling around, Aldred felt, but they had been caught in flagrante delicto, and there had been a tremendous row. Aldred had been transferred, to separate him from his lover, and that was how he had ended up at Shiring.
There had been no repetition: Aldred still had troubling thoughts, but he was able to resist them.
Blod came back out of the tavern, and Dreng told her, with hand gestures, to pick up Aldred’s saddle. “I can’t carry heavy weights, I’ve got a bad back,” Dreng said. “A Viking knocked me off my horse at the battle of Watchet.”
Aldred checked on Dismas, who seemed settled in the pasture, then went into the alehouse. It was much like a regular house except for its size. It had a lot of furniture, tables and stools and chests and wall hangings. There were other signs of affluence: a large salmon hanging from the ceiling, being cured in the smoke from the fire; a barrel with a bung standing on a bench; hens pecking in the reeds on the floor; a pot bubbling on the fire and giving off a tantalizing fragrance of spring lamb.
Dreng pointed to a thin young woman stirring the pot. Aldred noticed that she wore an engraved silver disc on a leather thong around her neck. “That’s my wife, Ethel,” said Dreng. The woman glanced at Aldred without speaking. Dreng was surrounded by young women, Aldred thought, all of them appearing unhappy.
He said: “Do you get many travelers passing through this place?” The level of prosperity was surprising for such a little settlement, and the thought crossed his mind that it might be funded by robbery.
“Enough,” Dreng said shortly.
“Not far from here I encountered two men who looked like outlaws.” He watched Dreng’s face and added: “One of them wore an old iron helmet.”
“We call him Ironface,” said Dreng. “He’s a liar and a murderer. He robs travelers on the south side of the river, where the track runs mostly through forest.”
“Why hasn’t someone arrested him?”
“We’ve tried, believe me. Offa, the reeve of Mudeford, has offered two pounds of silver to anyone who can catch Ironface. Obviously he’s got a hideout somewhere in the woods, but we can’t find it. We’ve had the sheriff’s men down here and everything.”
It was plausible enough, Aldred thought, but he remained suspicious. Dreng with his limp could not be Ironface—unless the limp was faked—but he might benefit in some way from the robberies. Perhaps he knew where the hideout was and got paid for his silence.
“His voice is odd,” Aldred said, probing.
“He’s probably Irish or Viking or something. No one knows.” Dreng changed the subject. “You’d better have a flagon of ale, to refresh you after your journey. My wife makes very good ale.”
“Later, perhaps,” Aldred said. He did not spend the monastery’s money in alehouses if he could help it. He spoke to Ethel. “What’s the secret of making good ale?” he asked.
“Not her,” said Dreng. “My other wife, Leaf, makes the ale. She’s in the brewhouse now.”
The church struggled with this. Most men who could afford it had more than one wife, or a wife and one or more concubines, and slave girls, too. The church did not have jurisdiction over marriage. If two people exchanged vows in front of witnesses, they were married. A priest might offer a blessing, but he was not essential. Nothing was written down unless the couple was wealthy, in which case there might be a contract about any exchange of property.
Aldred’s objection to this was not just moral. When a man like Dreng died there was often a rancorous quarrel over inheritance that turned on which of his children were legitimate. The informality of weddings left room for disputes that could fracture families.
So Dreng’s household was not exceptional. However, it was surprising to find this in a little hamlet adjacent to a minster. “The clergy at the church would be troubled if they knew about your domestic arrangements,” he said severely.
Dreng laughed. “Would they?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Well, you’re wrong. They know all about it. The dean, Degbert, is my brother.”
“That should make no difference!”
“That’s what you think.”
Aldred was too angry to continue the discussion. He found Dreng loathsome. To avoid losing his temper he went outside. He headed along the riverbank, trying to walk off his mood.
Where the cultivated land came to an end there was a farmhouse and barn, both old and much repaired. Aldred saw a group sitting outside the house: three young men and an older woman—a family with no father, he guessed. He hesitated to approach them for fear that all the residents of Dreng’s Ferry might be like Dreng. He was about to turn and walk back when one of them gave a cheery wave.
If they waved to strangers, perhaps they were all right.
Aldred walked up a slope to the house. The family evidently had no furniture, for they were sitting on the ground to eat their evening meal. The three boys were not tall, but broad-shouldered and deep-chested. The mother was a tired woman with a resolute look. The faces of all four were lean, as if they did not eat much. A brown-and-white dog sat with them; it, too, was thin.
The woman spoke first. “Sit with us and rest your legs, if you’re so inclined,” she said. “I am Mildred.” She pointed out the boys, eldest to youngest. “My sons are Erman, Eadbald, and Edgar. Our supper isn’t fancy, but you’re welcome to share it.”
Their meal certainly was not fancy. They had a loaf of bread and a large
pot containing lightly boiled forest vegetables, probably lettuce, onions, parsley, and wild garlic. No meat was visible. It was no wonder they did not get fat. Aldred was hungry, but he could not take food from people who were so desperately poor. He refused politely. “It smells tempting, but I’m not hungry, and monks must avoid the sin of gluttony. However, I will sit with you, and thank you for your welcome.”
He sat on the ground, something monks did not often do, despite their vows. There was poverty, Aldred thought, and then there was real poverty.
Making conversation, he said: “The grass looks almost ready to reap. You’ll have a good harvest of hay in a few days’ time.”
Mildred answered. “I wasn’t sure we’d be able to make hay, because the riverside land is almost too marshy, but it dried up in the hot weather. I hope it does the same every year.”
“Are you new here, then?” Aldred asked.
“Yes,” she said. “We came from Combe.”
Aldred could guess why they had left. “You must have suffered in the Viking raid. I saw the devastation when I passed through the town the day before yesterday.”
Edgar, the youngest of the brothers, spoke. He looked about eighteen, with only the pale soft hair of an adolescent on his chin. “We lost everything,” he said. “My father was a boatbuilder. They killed him. Our stock of timber was burned and our tools were ruined. So we’ve had to make a completely new start.”
Aldred studied the young man with interest. Perhaps he was not handsome, but there was something appealing about his looks. Although the conversation was informal, his sentences were clear and logical. Aldred found himself drawn to Edgar. Get a grip on yourself, he thought. The sin of lust was more difficult to avoid than the sin of gluttony, for Aldred.
He asked Edgar: “And how are you getting on in your new life?”
“We’ll be able to sell the hay, provided it doesn’t rain in the next few days, and then we’ll have some money at last. We’ve got oats ripening on the higher ground. And we have a piglet and a lamb. We should get through the winter.”