I counted back, trying to remember every last soul I had met in my life.
I named to myself all the cats I had known. And all the dogs too.
I recited to myself all that I could remember of Odo’s great Book of Life.
I played chess in my head, against an imaginary opponent, but he always proved of identical strength, with the result that we always drew. He always saw the traps I laid for him, as I saw his coming, too.
It was not long before the rank smell of my own body took to offending my very own nose. So I started daily to bathe myself naked, kneeling in the chilly water of a stream.
I saw the flea-bites – white-headed, reddened pimples – scattered all over my chest and limbs.
So I hunted every last flea from my body, and deposited them unharmed on God’s earth a hundred paces from my lair. I wished the beasties no harm or hurt. But I had suffered their random bites long enough.
So I wished them good health elsewhere, and to feel free to secure another habitation. The first day I found nineteen. The second day there were four. The third day there was one. And the fourth day there were none.
Perhaps I had needed rest. Maybe the medicine helped too. For I chewed on hemlock, rosemary and henbane leaves. And sucked on juniper berries.
I felt myself grow stronger and steadier. The lingering fever went. The headaches stopped too.
Those lumps that had come and gone in my groin and neck were evident no more.
One morning I woke in my leafy bed and found myself visited by a large warty toad, the width and breadth of my hand. It sat on its fat haunches, close to the side of my head, and observed me with unblinking amber eyes.
It must have been the ugliest, lumpiest, wartiest being I had ever witnessed. It would make a carbuncle look handsome. But it issued such a feeling of calm and good-will that I was moved to address it.
‘Hello, warty brother,’ said I. ‘Well met …’
It nodded briefly. Then opened its mouth wide to croak something guttural.
I knew it spoke itself kindly and friendly. But I could not understand precisely what was said, for it spoke entirely in the croaky, slithery tongue peculiar and private to toads.
‘Who are you? What do you want?’ I enquired. ‘Show me a sign.’
It was then that the full revelation occurred.
A brother toad – identical in its size, appearance and serene manner – hopped from nowhere to appear at its side. And the two of them squatted on their fat haunches, unblinking, regarding me calmly.
‘Are you a manifestation?’ I asked. ‘An epiphany?’
They turned to eye each other. Then, nodding their agreement, they turned back to me and voiced themselves in unison.
‘Krrrrrk,’ they said. They said it in a single voice. They said it both together.
It was then I discerned their identity. I realised it all of a sudden. From their sublime ugliness, the grace of their spirit, the duality of their being, and the synchrony of their motions.
They had come to visit me in my solitary misery. They were come to save me from my slough of despair.
‘Have no fear,’ their presence said. ‘You are not alone. You are never alone or forgotten. You are always in the Lord’s sight. Jesus loves you. He loves you as much as an angel or a hazelnut. And so do we.’
‘Do you carry a message?’
‘Krrrrrk,’ they agreed.
‘That it’s safe to return?’
‘Krrrrrk,’ one said.
‘So, they’ve stopped looking for me?’
‘Krrrrrk,’ observed the other.
Then, without a backward look, bounding into the ferns, they were gone. The two moving as one, as if to a single, gracious, generous mind.
Praise be to God.
The spirits of Saint Odo and Saint Odo, of Here and There, patron of the despised, homeless and helpless, reveal themselves in many forms. They bring comfort to the homeless, the helpless, those outcast and despised. They bestow their grace and favour, and move amongst us still.
So I knew it was time. To come out of the wilderness, where I had been for forty-odd days.
XXII. The Return
A column of grey smoke drifts from the chimney of the long house of the monastery. My feet are sodden, sucked by mud and cowpats.
There are three figures working in the garden. As I draw closer I recognise Huw from his stoop, and Matthew with his splay-footed limp, alongside another brother I do not know.
They pause in their labours and turn to look my way, but without any smile of recognition.
‘Welcome, stranger,’ says Huw, standing up, resting on his hoe. ‘May God go with you.’
‘Brother Huw,’ I say, ‘and Matthew. Surely you know me.’
‘Know you?’ Matthew frowns. ‘Who are you?’
‘Me,’ I say. ‘Myself.’
‘Yourself?’
‘Exactly,’ I say. ‘Returned,’ I explain.
‘But who?’
‘Brother Diggory,’ I say.
They consider this in silence. They look to each other. They frown.
‘No, no,’ says Huw, shaking his head. ‘There was a Brother Diggory … but the Lord took him.’
‘He died of the pestilence,’ says Matthew, ‘and he was just a boy. Not a grown man like you.’
‘Surely,’ I say, ‘you know my face? I used to help you with the horses,’ I said. ‘Clover, the skewbald mare, was always your favourite.’
He squints. ‘What are you? Some ghoul?’ He steps backwards, out of my reach. ‘It’s true there’s some strong resemblance in the face …’
‘No. It’s me, Diggory,’ I say. ‘Truly.’
‘Are you his wandering spirit? Can you find no rest?’
‘No.’ I reach out my hand. ‘Feel me. I am warm. I am solid. I am Diggory. For I never died. Or, if I did, it was only briefly.’
‘Now I can see the likeness. But … you’re much taller … you have a beard.’
‘I was a boy, but I grew. Now I’m a man.’
They shake their heads. They come forward and pat me on the arm, and touch my shoulder, and confirm my warm, solid form.
‘Come …’ They lead me down the path to the misericord.
‘We must go see Brother Gregory,’ says Huw, ‘he’s the Abbot now. Do not fear. He is strict but he is fair.’
There is much I want to know. ‘Is there a new doctor, now Fulco is gone?’
‘We do not have one. We are only nine brothers,’ says Huw. ‘We are building anew. These things take time.’
Brother Gregory shuffles forward. He eyes me from tufty head to grimy toe. He hears Huw tell the story. He takes me back with a scowl and a hug. He says I am the Prodigal Returned.
Close up, he smells of fusty apples and goat’s cheese. Beneath the tips of his finger-nails are crescents of black dirt. Bristly clumps of white hair curl out of his ears. He is shorter than me now. His red nose is swollen and pitted like a strawberry. A small ball of snot hangs from a nostril, dangling on its stalk, straining to fall.
He starts to lecture me. He raises his voice for command and effect. He stabs the air with his fingers. Then he joins his hands, interlocking fingers, so they can wrestle each other and display his sincerity.
I do not follow every word of it all, for I am looking about me, seeing how things are changed for the worse. But some of his words pass through my mind.
He says I must straightaway shave my head, strip myself of my profane clothes, and dress in a tunic and cowl, to submit myself anew to the disciplines of our order.
He says I must do penance for leaving the brotherhood without seeking permission. He says I should crawl on all fours twice around the chapel. In the sight of all the other brothers.
He says he would then hear my confession, regarding my sordid time in the world. He warns I must tell all, however shocking, and hold nothing back.
I look on politely. I hold my tongue. I do not ask where he was when I was left here alone, burying
our dead, saving Odo’s treasures.
I do not challenge him by telling him that I am the true Abbot – with the true Abbot’s ring as proof, albeit stowed up my arse – and he just some late pretender. And I do not ask why, in God’s name, I should fashion my habits and character on his sorry example.
I had returned to my home after a long time away. I had come in hope with good faith and a clean heart. I had come for a fond reunion. I had come to recommence my life as a monk.
But looking to Abbot Gregory and the few other brothers, and the ramshackle buildings, and neglected gardens, I realised the monastery was no longer the place for me.
It was empty of scholars now Fulco was gone.
There was nothing to learn here that I did not know already.
I sensed obedience had become too steep and narrow a path for me.
I had enough of cramping my hand copying copies of copies, with no freedoms, save for small scribbles in the margins.
My calloused hands confided they had dug enough gardens.
I enjoyed women. So chastity would no longer suit me.
I had fallen out of the habit of praying seven times a day.
I needed some further acquaintance with sin, before I sincerely resigned life’s pleasures.
I’d grown used to having meat on my platter. With gravy.
And hair upon my scalp.
And my own thoughts in my head.
Between Vespers and Compline, the Abbot and I walked out to where the gardens had been. The land was heavily overgrown, fed, I suppose, by so many dead brothers, giving of themselves back to the world.
I guessed the places to dig from the lie of the land, pacing out the distance to the buildings, then correcting for the growth of my steps, between here and then.
Brother Huw dug. Brother Matthew held the torch, flickering and spitting in the drizzle.
This way they recovered much – coins in a cooking pot, silver altar furniture, bundles of manuscripts, parcelled in oiled cloth, reliquary boxes, only part rotted, vestments rolled up in leather sacks.
We went to the chapel to celebrate Compline, and God’s great bounty, and the gifts returned to us from the dead.
As the brothers trod their way back to their cells for sleep, I let myself out of the monastery by the side gate and strode away into the night.
XXIII. I Find My Home and Helpmeet
Yew Wood is the village of my birth, nine long miles from the monastery. I had not been back there for a decade, since I was seven.
I thought I would recognise the houses, bridges and meadows, but nothing looked familiar. Everything was meaner, smaller and tighter than I had expected.
All that came back of my childhood there were brief snatches of summer-time. Getting stung on the tongue by a wasp as we shared an apple. Diving into the river and from the bottom seeing the dancing sun, be-tween the reed stems, through a golden haze of cloudy water. Running through the barley field with my friend Maddy.
The main street was narrow and pitted, the houses in poor repair, as an incessant rain loosed the mud underfoot to a thin brown treacle.
I stopped a man and asked after my grandfather.
‘Do you know where I can find Luke Fox?’ I said.
‘Old Luke Fox?’ He whistled. ‘Back there.’ He pointed to the church, the way I had come. ‘In the grave-yard.’
‘Working there?’ I asked, for Luke often cut the grass and trimmed the hedging.
‘Sleeping the rest of the dead,’ he said, and crossed himself.
I stopped some moments, and said a prayer, moist-eyed in remembrance.
When I wander into the Three Moons inn, the company promptly falls silent. All eyes turn on me.
I try to strike up a conversation with the landlord. I ask him for a jug of ale.
He answers, informing me that he has a sore tooth. He says it is the same sore tooth he has had these past two days. And nights.
He says it mars his mood. And then he invites me to commit an unnatural intimacy upon myself, sticking my parts where they cannot go, and never belong.
He remarks that he is a hospitable and kind-hearted man but, as things stand, he would as happily twist off my head with his bare hands as serve me any beer. So, I’d better move on.
‘Which tooth?’ I ask.
‘Why?’ he growls. ‘Is that any business of yours?’
‘I am a surgeon and apothecary.’
He scowls at me some moments, then sways my way, turning his head sideways. He slowly opens his gappy jaws and points to the weeping green stump and livid red gum at the side of his mouth.
‘There,’ he says.
‘Shall I free you of it,’ I say, ‘and stop your pain?’
He grunts. Reluctant, he nods.
I say he must first chew on some henbane, which I fetch from my pouch of herbs, to soothe the pain, and that as I travelled without tools, I shall need small blacksmith’s tongs, nut-crackers, or two metal spoons. Else a small hammer and chisel.
But then the blacksmith, who is drinking in the tavern, says he has the very implement I need – some long-handled chainmail pliers.
The dozen drinkers in the tavern draw around to watch the show. They make some mockery of my youth and untidy appearance. A couple of small wagers are struck as to the success of my performance.
The offending tooth being a jagged, weeping stump, there is not much to hang on to, so leverage is in short supply. But I dig deep, into his swollen gum, and persevere with the pincers, as if my life depends on it, climbing onto my toes, while the landlord starts yelping a high-pitched whine, like a whipped puppy, and keeps stamping his foot, until I hear the creak, followed by the crack, that comes as the tooth finally yields its last tenure on his jaw. And it flies out, over the heads of the onlookers, landing with a clank in the fireplace.
The audience stamp their feet and bang their fists on the refectory table to show their approval.
‘God’s bones …’ remarks the landlord. His spits a gobful of pale yellow pussy stuff, while a stream of blood arcs up and out from the side of his mouth.
He shakes his head, smiles and remarks, ‘Sweet Jesus. I feel better for that.’
He lays a tankard of ale before me. He beams at me lopsided through swollen, blood-smeared lips. He pats my back. He calls me ‘friend’. He asks me who I am and where I hail from.
I tell him I come from this very parish. That my mother was Mattilda Fox, and her father Luke Fox. I say I was given over to the monastery at Whye, where I trained as a scribe, surgeon and apothecary.
He says, ‘Welcome home … son.’ He says I must forgive the initial unfriendliness. But the company mistook me as some unnecessary stranger from some foreign place.
He remarks that I am to be welcomed too for my skills, since there is no doctor or surgeon thereabouts, or in any of the neighbouring parishes, for the plague had taken two, while the others have fled.
Then other drinkers declare they have teeth that I might pull for them.
And a swine-herd shows me his infected leg, which I bathe and bandage, and also his dog’s mastitis, which I say he might cure with a poultice of cabbage leaves.
As the day passes, news spread around the village of the arrival of medicine.
So, I am much in demand and get called here and there, to puncture seven sheep that have the bloat from a surfeit of clover, de-horn a boisterous bull, lance some boils, treat some colic, medicate some canker, remedy some scouring in piglets, and bandage some weeping leg ulcers.
I attend upon many and various patients, animal and human, with conditions malignant and trivial.
Often I have full knowledge of what I am doing, and a suitable treatment for their particular complaint. Many are grateful. Several feel better after. None die.
In return I am, for the very first time in my life, paid for my labour – receiving duck eggs, barley loaves, turnip tops, promises, a kiss, mugs of ale, and some pennies.
Franklin the landlord promises me free lod
ging for the night.
‘Do you know what I think you should do, Jack?’ He lays his heavy arm on my shoulder and tweaks my cheek.
‘What’s that?’
‘I think you should stay at the inn here, and rent a barn from me, to treat the sick, and hire some garden space to grow your herbs.’
I say that sounds a promising prospect.
‘You seem like a calm, agreeable, kindly man. Who likes to help people. And has a trade and many skills.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It would benefit us both. For I would give you a roof. And you would draw custom to my premises.’
Then he confides that there is one further good deed I can do for him, should I be willing, that would make him happy and content me too.
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘what’s that?’
‘You could marry my daughter, Faith.’
‘Marry?’ I say. ‘Your daughter?’
It comes as a sudden, surprising invitation.
I do not want to offend him, my new best friend. But I have to confess that I have no feelings for his daughter, having never met her.
‘She is my only daughter. She is very precious to me. I am offering you a great gift.’
‘Yes?’ I enquire. ‘What is she like?’
‘She has a very strong mind,’ he says, ‘and is pleasantly plain to the eye.’
‘Is that good, in a wife?’ I ask. For you can be married till death do you part, and spend years regarding your spouse, full in the face.
‘Never make the mistake I did …’ He sighs, looking solemnly to the ground. ‘If you marry a beautiful wife, you will have no peace or rest. There’ll be no end to your troubles. The beautiful grow vain from watching their own reflections. They will drive you to distraction, always asking you to look at them, and remark upon their appearance, saying, “Is my hair better like this, or like that?” “Am I prettier than the milkmaid?” “Do I look younger than my daughter?” “Which is the lovelier, my right side or the left?” “Would you care to see the pimple on my arse?” “Is my muff too furry?” “Do my toes look plump?”’
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