The Abbot's Tale

by Conn Iggulden

  ‘Show yourself,’ he said again, panting almost as hard as me.

  I remember seeing his spittle and then the world became too bright and I fell away. I suppose I did show myself to him in the fit that followed, so bright and huge it was a kind of death.

  In the infirmary, I ate soft-boiled eggs and green cabbage soup until I thought my bowels might burst for the noxious wind they produced. I remember my irrational fear that such foul odours might be taken as more evidence of possession by devils, or some evil thing rotting away the heart of me. I did not want to earn the attentions of Brother Caspar again. When the air became oppressive, I clenched myself tighter than a drum, then hobbled over to the open window. Gently, I prised my buttocks apart to expel the bad air in silence, or with no more than a soft whistle. Aphra had a dozen duties and bustled in and out. I was always safely back in bed when I heard her steps coming.

  I must have done it a dozen times over the course of that afternoon. I was not quite in my right mind, I think. My vision was blurred and my left eye was swollen. I saw only the bright window. I did not know there was a classroom across the yard. The boys at their lessons had a very good view of me creeping stealthily up and turning round, then parting my cheeks to the open air.

  It was Brother Encarius who was teaching that class across the way; it was his lesson I disturbed by reducing his pupils to hysterics with my antics. I believe he had to cane every one of them, and it was that exertion that gave him colour when he came to see the cause of the disruption. Perhaps he thought I was doing it for a lark, then, a wilful, vulgar boy. He came to stand over me and winced visibly.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I’d heard, of course, in this small place. Brother Caspar is . . . a right enthusiastic seeker after truth.’ He sounded almost apologetic, but I did not reply, having learned to be wary. Encarius waited for a time before he went on.

  ‘The shaking sickness is fascinating, is it not? My own brother was overtaken and made senseless by fits, not too different from yours, I believe. He came to them after he was struck in a raid on our village and left for dead, at just a few years old. His skull was oddly dented ever after. He used to rest his thumb in it while he read. Just here.’ He indicated a spot, while I glowered in silence. ‘When it came, his fit would leave him senseless and weak for a whole day.’

  Still, I stared at him. I would give them nothing. He seemed to sense the rage behind my glare and flushed a shade deeper.

  ‘Dunstan, is it? I have made a hobby of the physic. If you tell me you have suffered any similar wound in your life, I could petition Abbot Clement for permission to study you. Instead of you continuing your work with Brother Caspar.’

  He gave me no clue at all that he wanted me to lie, leaving it up to me to catch his meaning. I liked him then, Encarius. It is hard to believe he was only twenty. I was seven years younger and I thought of him as grown, not one who blushed like a girl and did not yet shave all his jaw, but just the top lip and the point of his chin.

  ‘My mother said I fell when I was young,’ I told him. ‘She said I struck my head on the hearthstone, hard enough to knock me out for two days. She used to tell me she thought I would never wake.’

  He seemed delighted, did Encarius. He reached out and examined my forehead, looking for some sign of the old wound. I imagine he was disappointed. He patted my leg as well, though I pulled back in case he was one of those who liked lads in the way of women. I was wrong about that, thank goodness. He didn’t like boys; he didn’t even like women.

  ‘What happened to your brother?’ I asked suddenly. I maintained my scowl, but I had never met another who had seen something like my shaking and I wanted to know. Encarius bowed his head and I guessed before he spoke.

  ‘He died young, just a year older than you are now. He would wrench his joints apart in his fits and had to be tied down . . .’ He trailed off as he considered his audience. ‘Yet for all his roaring and pain, I never saw a devil in him. I know they can be invited in by some unwary soul, but my brother was so young – a good boy. Did you ever give up your soul, Dunstan? I see great anger in you today – instead of penitence and forgiveness. Did you ever rage aloud and wish destruction on your enemies, no matter what it cost? If you did, your shaking could be unholy, an abomination. I could not help you then, except at peril of my own soul.’

  I was too used to dissembling to look at him in surprise, though he had called me right. ‘Never,’ I said, holding his gaze. ‘I confess I am a poor sinner, but my soul is mine.’ That is the key to the lock, with monks. If you claim to be an innocent, they will suspect the sin of pride. Claim instead to be a lowly, wretched creature – and they will love you for it, knowing you for one of their own.

  ‘Then in the name of St Luke, patron of healers – and the angel Raphael, whose name means “God heals” – I will attempt to help you, as God wills it, with prayer and the medicines of plants and natural earths.’

  I did not like the sound of the last part. When I look back on that morning, with my choice to be beaten by Caspar or dosed by Encarius, honestly there is a part of me that wishes I had chosen the beatings.

  ‘I will pray with you now, Dunstan, then leave you to rest and recover. When I am gone, please don’t go to the window again. The boys find it amusing.’

  I looked up at him in appalled shock, my face burning. There was no twitch of mockery in his expression, only stern interest. He was always a humourless man.

  Brother Encarius laid his hand on the crown of my head and I was content to stare down at the coarse blanket, ashamed and furious. He prayed over me for a time, while I planned vengeance on Caspar. I did not know then what it would be, only that it would be terrible.

  3

  I was three days in that infirmary after my beating, so I missed the beginning of Wulfric’s troubles. I was not fully well even then, but at least I did not need a crutch. I could imagine the mockery if both Heorstan’s sons had to hobble about like cripples. If I had spent those first few days in the classroom, I might have been able to prevent what came later. As it was, I made my entrance when all the boys had already set themselves against Wulfric – and so, all unknowing, they had set themselves against me.

  Had I not been yellow, black and blue, I might even then have established my place and warned them off from tormenting us. I don’t know. A white blackbird will be killed by its flock – a stranger causes fear and anger in those he meets. Joining the boys in that little wolf pit would always have been hard.

  There was a great range of age and degree of birth in that abbey class. The youngest was James at nine, whom I had already booted once through a doorway. If I had known he was an earl’s son, I would have been more conciliatory. His father had an army, after all.

  The eldest was Godwin, then fifteen and broader than anyone had a right to be on what they fed us. If Brother Caspar had owned the wits of a babe in arms, he would have seen the devil in Godwin, not me. ‘Show yourself, creature’ indeed! The man was an idiot.

  I entered that small schoolroom on a day where sunlight dragged a beam of gold across the desks, shining thick with motes. I bowed to Master Florian, who would teach us Latin, joining boys from Ireland and Wales with those of Wessex in one tongue – introducing us to Virgil and Livy and Cato and Pliny and Caesar’s commentaries. Ah, old Florian held the key to a gate of wonders. I still recall his first words, when I knew almost nothing.

  He spoke slowly, as if to a fool – not that it helped me.

  ‘Dunstan! Italia . . . pœninsula est. Britannia insula est! Dunstan: Estne Britannia aut . . . insula . . . aut paeninsula?’

  I had no more idea whether Britain was a peninsula or an island than I could speak Aramaic. I had sensed the tone of a question and every eye was on me, so with a grin, I repeated a nonsense rush of his words back to him.

  ‘Britannia . . . insula pœninsula est . . . aut Italia?’

  There was laughter in that room and Master Florian struck my ear with his switch, so that pain seared
across the side of my head. I yelped, of course, only to hear that sound mocked in turn by Godwin, made higher and longer, like the squeal of a butchered lamb. Master Florian seemed not to notice. He returned to his raised dais, already mumbling through some correction with another boy. I could see a glitter in Godwin’s eyes. I would learn he was the son of Prior Simeon – the second in authority over our community after Abbot Clement. I knew, in something like joy, that I had found my enemy and he had found me.

  I welcomed foes, in those far-off days. For a man to become my enemy now, he must work so hard to be noticed that he will surely exhaust himself.

  Wulfric turned round to commiserate with me and earned a smack with the switch across his hand for doing so. Master Florian never seemed to take especial pleasure in hitting us, but he was still remarkably free with his stick and kept a little basket of them by his desk, of different thicknesses. The narrow ones hurt worst, but the thick ones left bruises that took longer to heal. I think he was a good man, was Florian. I liked him.

  While my poof ear continued to throb and sting, I was given a three-panel wax slate and a wooden stylus. We recited and chanted, and the switch snapped across desks and hands and the backs of our heads as the morning droned on and the groaning of empty stomachs could be heard in the silence, the strangest of sounds coming from a dozen starving boys. Even Godwin lost his lazy smile as he waited for the Sext bell to sound. The air filled with the smell of stewed mutton gravy, suet dumplings and turnips, so rich and thick that we dribbled like hounds. We were always hungry then.

  When the bell rang, we rose from our seats and stood in perfect silence. Master Florian was as sharp-set as we were, so dismissed us without delay to the chapel. We trooped past the door, placing our slates into a box, ready to be snatched up the next morning.

  To those who have not lived a monastic life, it may sound a burden to be scurrying off to prayers at all hours of the day and night. Well, it was. I admit it became second nature to me, so that I cannot sleep more than four hours even now, always finding myself upright and ready to chant Matins, or to sing it on a feast day, though my voice would always have shamed a crow.

  We memorised services as quickly as any other lesson, under the sharp eye and sharper punishment of the monks. I understand a little better now that it gave us moments of peace in busy days. Our prayers became the hum of bees; the air became still. Each morning at Prime, we stifled yawns as the sun rose through glass, splintering colours on the stone floor. There are many worse ways to begin a day.

  After the brief Sext service, we were released to the dining hall at last. I remember running down the cloisters, my discomforts vanishing at the prospect of food. Wulfric was just behind me and then his crutch was kicked away and he went down with a yell, barking his knees on the stones. I came to a stop, though my stomach protested.

  Godwin was there, grinning at me in challenge.

  I looked down at Wulfric and saw his hurt and shame. Though I was still sore injured, I threw myself at Godwin, with only rage as my armour. The cloisters were empty and there was no one to see as the older boy began to batter me with his bony knees and fists, grunting all the while like a pig at the trough. I thought he would kill me, by accident or of a purpose I did not know, but I felt it coming.

  I will say that Wulfric jumped up and tried to hold Godwin’s arm, though he was no great weight and earned only a buffet across the jaw for his interference. Wulfric fell dazed or senseless and I struggled for breath and blew speckles of blood, though I did not weep. I was exhausted, finished, could barely raise my hands, and yet Godwin measured the distance and tilted his head and swung again, trying to rob away my senses in one huge blow. I learned later that Godwin had knocked out a number of the smaller boys and considered it his finest art. He was never satisfied with mere bruises. His entire aim was to bring about that kind of small death. I am told he would stand and crow then like a barnyard cockerel.

  If he had managed that with me, perhaps our fates would have been different. Instead, I flinched away and swung wildly. Godwin stepped into a blow that broke his nose and made blood flow like a bubbling stream. I gaped a little, more in fear of what he would then do than from any sense of triumph. In turn, Godwin stood stunned – an instant of perfect stillness in that empty corridor. His eyes glittered. At first, I thought he was crying, though it was just the reaction. If I had my time again, I would break him in those few, precious moments when he was blind with tears.

  As I watched in horror, Godwin reached up to his face and stared at fingers marked in blood. A single tear spilled down his cheek and he wiped at it in rage. There was an ugly light in his eyes as Wulfric spoke behind me.

  ‘Go on, Dun! You’ve marked him! Give him another!’

  My heart sank at the words. Godwin made a growling sound, all his jeering cruelty replaced by something more dangerous. He reached for me with splayed fingers. I tried to avoid his first grip, but then we all froze as a man’s voice snapped out.

  ‘You boys! What are you doing there? Stand!’

  I dare say a group of village urchins would have scattered, but there was nowhere to run where they could not find us and Wulfric could only hobble. We shuffled into line to be inspected, with Wulfric and me on either side of Godwin and all staring at a point on the wall. Our obedience seemed natural then, though blood still dribbled from Godwin’s nose and my eye was slowly swelling shut. The white of that eye went red for a time, so that I did look a little demonic. I missed the effect of it when the clot finally faded.

  Brother Encarius tutted as he peered at us.

  ‘Well, boys. You had the choice to eat or fight – and you chose to fight. It looks as if the honours are even. So I will watch you shake hands and beg each other’s pardon.’

  We did so, mumbling. Encarius nodded seriously.

  ‘Well done, lads. I hope you can put this behind now. You are not saints – no one expects you to be, but neither will we allow you to brawl like peasant boys. Now, you have missed the serving, but it will not hurt to go without a meal. I can see too much flesh on all of you as it is.’ That last was just a lie, by the way. Wulfric and I were growing like runner beans. You could tell all our bones.

  Encarius let us sweat for a few moments longer as he glared at us, then the fire went out of him in a sigh.

  ‘Dunstan, Wulfric. I must say I expected better from you, if not from Master Godwin here. You two go and assist Brother Thomas in the garden. He was just saying he needed someone to load marrows into boxes, then to help him row the boat across.’

  I dipped my head, sick at the thought of going hungry when my stomach was aching, but pleased to be allowed to go. I dawdled even so, wanting to hear what he would say to Godwin. Unfortunately, Encarius was no fool.

  ‘You have been dismissed, boys. On your way,’ he said. ‘If I see you fighting again, I will send you to the abbot.’

  I had no idea what that involved, but it sounded as if Encarius considered it threat enough on its own, so I took his word for it. Wulfric and I rushed off then, away from the wondrous smell of gravy and carrots, away from Godwin’s sour glare. We grinned at him, of course, as we had escaped punishment and he had not.

  ‘Thank you, Dun,’ Wulfric said as we rounded the corner and paused to pant and wince. ‘He torments the small ones. I told them you would defend me when you came.’

  I rolled my eyes at hearing that. It seemed Wulfric’s weakness had brought about my fresh bruises and the taste of blood in my mouth. I detested him anew.

  ‘Well, you were wrong. You cost me a meal and I am starving. Anyway, I was defending myself, not a baby like you.’

  He looked hurt at that, though I knew he would get over it. He was always a sunny boy, my brother. No matter what happened, he could put aside his troubles and smile. Like a dog, I suppose, coming to cringe and beg at its master’s knee even after a beating.

  ‘The gardens lie beyond that arch,’ Wulfric said as I bustled past.

  I glared at him
and he fell silent. I didn’t say another word as we found our way back to the dormitory. There were three in all, unnamed rooms of no great size, with barely enough space for six beds in each. Wulfric was in the leftmost, while I had been given a cot and a small shelf in the second.

  Sacks of onions and leeks were stacked in the corner of my little dormitory, suggesting the original use before Abbot Clement discovered the true value of teaching was in the income it brought in. My bed was rough oak, with splits in the honey-coloured beams I could put my hand into. There was a straw-filled pallet no thicker than my thumb and a single blanket made from what appeared to be some evil mingling of nettle and briar. I hadn’t spent a night in it since my arrival and it seemed a stranger’s bed. Perhaps because of that, I took out my knife and began to carve a ‘D’ on the post, down low where it could not easily be seen.

  ‘I don’t like it here,’ Wulfric said from the doorway.

  I think we sensed even then that time alone was a rare thing in the abbey. There was always somewhere we should be, or a service, or stacking wood and making food, or working in the gardens with the monks and other boys. We were alone in the night’s darkness, though that was not always a comfort. I heard a few lads snivelling sometimes, in those early days. If I wept, it was when no one else could see. My tears flowed, my pain eased and when I was done, when the storm had passed, I splashed water on my face and went on with the day. I never choked and grizzled and hoped someone would hear and take pity on me. I did not need pity.

  ‘Learn to like it,’ I told him. ‘Father has paid for you to be turned from a pathetic baby into a young man. Your red eyes, your cringing, your stink and your whining little voice shames us all.’

  His face crumpled and I stood in a temper to grab his arm, not truly aware of the knife still in my grasp. He flinched from the blade and I think that enraged me more. I shook him, like a dog with a rat, taking out my anger as he wailed and tried to pull away. His legs folded and I was supporting his full weight, so I let him go with a cry of disgust.