The Abbot's Tale

by Conn Iggulden

  ‘My lady, it has been a great honour. I should pray with my brother this morning, as Abbot Simeon has said.’

  I made no demand of her, do you see? A woman of wealth will always be approached and surrounded by flatterers, well-meaning or not. I made no claim – and she came to my hand as a result.

  ‘I would speak to you again before I rejoin my uncle’s court,’ she said. Once more, her gaze was utterly still, watching and reading me. I always found it hard to lie to her.

  ‘Of course, my lady,’ I said, bowing deep as a courtier. I had taken great care with my appearance that day, removing all the soot and muck of my labours so that I appeared clean.

  She turned away at last, releasing me. I thought I could detect the eyes of the monks on my back as I went, wondering what to make of my sudden rise in status. I’m afraid I preened a little at the thought of their jealousy. I should have been more wary of it.

  Despite the loss of old Keats, Lady Elflaed stayed longer with us than she had intended. In the mornings, she would write letters and send them away, but she always sought me out for some part of the day. She played with the forge cat while I worked iron or wood; she prayed each evening with me, at Wulfric’s side. As the sun set, she sometimes stroked her hand over his brow, as a mother might have done. Her own sons were grown and in households of their own. Still, I was touched that she would do such a thing.

  The abbey settled back into its routines and if I noticed that Alice was more and more often in my sight as I went about my labours, I paid her no attention, not even when she appeared to have been crying. I had my own plans laid and a great lady of the court to bring them about. It was a happy time, I remember, filled with excitement and the prospect of leaving that damp island and seeing the world. There have been moments in my life when I truly believe I have been touched by God, despite my best efforts. Though I may be unworthy, he does love a sinner and always has. Jesus himself said that God rejoices more in a lost sheep returned than all the happy, bleating flock who never saw the open gate at all.

  I was his lost sheep then – and he watched for me.

  Wulfric woke while I was cleaning him with a wet cloth. I had his arm draped limply over my shoulder and I was rubbing hard at sweat and grime when I saw his eyes were open and watching me. I gave a great cry, staggering backwards and knocking over a table full of pans, so that a crash went on and on as I stared and thought my heart would burst from my ribs.

  Aphra entered the room first, though Encarius was not far behind. They came to a halt in dawning wonder when they saw Wulfric turn his head to see them.

  ‘Wulfric, I am . . .’ I tried to speak and the strain of the months was released in me, so that I sobbed and could not make myself understood. He lived and he was awake.

  ‘I am starving,’ he said, then I saw his eyes widen as he tried to push himself up. I saw his stump move, but he only slumped back. ‘Where is my arm, Dun?’

  ‘It was crushed,’ Encarius said, seeing I was overcome. ‘We had to cut, or you would not have survived. We thought even then that you would not recover. It has been months, boy, since you were last awake.’

  ‘My arm!’ he said, reaching across and holding the stump with his other hand. He was pitiful in his confusion.

  Encarius resumed his usual stern manner, putting aside the shock and wonder of seeing Wulfric pull back from the brink of death.

  ‘Aphra, please fetch the boy something more nourishing than broth. He will need fowl and fish, with marsh samphire to continue his recovery. Yes, I will send one of the boys to collect a bushel of it! I will myself prepare a list of foodstuffs for you, all to enrich the blood. My goodness, this is a triumph! Abbot Simeon must be told. Dunstan, you have played your part in this.’

  Perhaps Wulfric had done some of his healing in the months he was asleep, I do not know. Once he was awake, it seemed he grew stronger each hour.

  We asked Wulfric what he remembered from the night of his injury, but it was fruitless. Not only had he no memory of being hurt, he seemed to have lost days before as well. He had no recollection of the tower and little even of the previous Christmas. I wondered then if the blow to his head could have taken some memories, which was a strange thought.

  He was slower of speech, though he did not slur or speak as a child. He just took a moment to think before he answered back. It broke my heart to see him do it, so that I wondered if he would ever again be the quick and laughing young man I had known. It was hard enough for him to lose his right arm and have to relearn eating and getting dressed and writing with his left. I saw his determination, but I also heard him weeping and cursing when he thought he was alone.

  Alice was a help to him. Just by waking, he had won her back from me, though I could not resent him for it. I knew my life was about to change, the moment Lady Elflaed realised I could replace old Keats and return with her to the king’s court. Wulfric had been the last thread holding me at the abbey, keeping me back. Now that he had woken and was recovering, I knew I could leave him, that I could leave them all like a chrysalis, dead and flaking on the branch. I waited for Elflaed to ask, and I bit my tongue whenever I thought of prompting. It had to come from her thought, her lips. My bright future rested on it.

  The end of the month approached and news spread amongst the monks and boys that the king’s niece was leaving us at last. She would return to London or to Winchester, wherever King Æthelstan lay his head. More than one of the monks wanted to know if I was going with her and looked surprised when I said I did not know. If it was so clear to them, I was certain she would alight on it.

  On the last day, she came to my room, where I lay reading speeches by Cato the Elder. Every one ended with the words ‘Carthaginem esse delendam’ – Carthage must be destroyed! It did not matter if he spoke about slavery or the drains, he could not resist that final barb on his favourite subject. I liked the man’s determination – and in the end, Rome destroyed Carthage so completely that even the ruins are lost.

  I leaped from my cot as she appeared, bowing deeply as Elflaed stared around at our little dormitory. I could see she was fascinated at the cramped space where we slept.

  ‘Dunstan, I have come to pray that God watches over you . . . to urge you to complete your work here. I only wish . . . no.’ To my surprise, she touched a cloth to the corner of one eye. ‘It has been a great honour to have met you and I will speak well of you when I see the king.’

  She seemed in earnest, and I did not like it at all. I waited for her to ask me to go with her, but she only rattled on, oblivious.

  ‘You were so kind to me when I was in grief at the loss of poor Keats. Perhaps in a few years, you will honour me with a visit to the court. I would be proud to be your host, the man who was carried in wings.’

  I blinked at her. I was being left behind. I had packed a bag! Wulfric was walking about in the infirmary, stretching his stick legs a little further each day! I had been so sure she would ask me, my mind leaped to horrible suspicions. Someone had reached those pink ears with jealous whispers. I wondered if it had been Caspar, or Abbot Simeon. The abbot saw me as a lure for Glastonbury, bringing pilgrims and their coins. Caspar only liked to see me suffer, so that if I wanted something, he would work to deny it to me.

  ‘My lady, I have thought long and hard on the visions I have been granted, of a great abbey rising in this place.’

  ‘Yes! Oh, yes, Dunstan. You could be the one to build it!’

  ‘My lady, it would take more years than one life if I use these hands. I believe my path lies away from here. I have sensed it. One man alone cannot build my visions, my lady. I must find the path, even if it takes me from my beloved forge and my offices here, even if it takes me from Wulfric and my dearest friends. God’s work will not be denied.’

  I looked at her, willing it, staring into her eyes as if I had lost a penny in them.

  ‘Oh, Dunstan, Father Simeon told me you would not be happy if I asked you to leave. When I asked for his counsel on the
matter, he said you had taken the abbey as a bride and that you would wither away from this place.’

  The cunning bastard, I thought. For my own good, she would leave me behind. I nodded as if agreeing, though I seethed.

  ‘That was true once, my lady, before the great visions came. Now I know I am drawn away to other paths. Glastonbury is my home – and always will be – but I must leave, as a boy leaves home to become a man. I will return to build the dream I knew, with God’s help I will.’

  She brought her hands together in delight, almost in prayer.

  ‘And mine, Dunstan! With my help as well! Oh, I am so relieved to hear it. I was sick at heart when I thought I had to leave you behind. Will the abbot not be angry with you?’

  ‘I am not ordained, my lady, nor yet one of his monks, though I sense that path lies ahead of me. He will lose a poor pupil, but perhaps gain more when I return.’ I thought for a moment, considering how the abbot and Brother Caspar actually might react. ‘Perhaps, though, you should wait a mile down the road when you leave tomorrow. I will come to you.’

  She clasped my hands in hers and kissed them, then pressed them to her cheek. I liked Elflaed, I really did. When she left my dormitory, it was with tears of happiness shining in her eyes. I put down my Roman speeches and lay for a while in thought. After a time, I stood up and went to the infirmary. If that evening was to be my last in Glastonbury, I would not leave Wulfric to the wolves.

  10

  Deep in the night, I was shaken awake, by Brother Caspar of all people. A lit candle rested on the shelf over me, where Caspar had placed it. The monk was red-faced and his hair stood up wild around his tonsure, like a halo. I blinked up at him, confused and a little afraid.

  ‘Is it Wulfric? Is my brother all right?’ I asked, fearing the answer.

  ‘What? How should I know that? The abbot’s son is dead, boy! Godwin!’

  Though he had his fist entangled in my sleeping shift, I came upright, my mind sharpening.

  ‘I thought he looked feverish,’ I said. ‘You have examined him?’

  Caspar just looked at me, his eyes narrow as he weighed my responses. I knew he was searching for guilt, and so I frowned at him, showing a trace of anger at being ignored. I knew too that I could not acknowledge his suspicions. An innocent man would not guess himself accused. I showed him nothing.

  ‘We must not delay here, Brother Caspar. Thank you for coming to wake me.’

  He had come to point a finger, but he was not sure. He kept silent as I went on.

  ‘Encarius will want me to assist him, of course. Abbot Simeon must be distraught. He will need to be dosed and made to rest, I have no doubt.’

  Brother Caspar’s colour began to fade, though he chewed one part of his lower lip and still watched, as if he thought I might yet give up my charade and run mad. I could see he was full of doubt, but the truth was that death was never too far away. We saw rather less of it at the abbey than in the villages and towns. Yet even in our small community, any one of us could take a chill, or eat and drink too much and never wake again.

  ‘Brother Caspar?’ I prompted, when he continued to say nothing. ‘Should I go to the infirmary, or is poor Godwin still in his room?’ I spoke gently, as if to one bemused by grief, or as we speak to the very old. ‘Brother Caspar? Is Encarius with him?’

  ‘He is,’ the man replied at last, strangled. ‘The whole abbey is awake now. I don’t know how you could still have been asleep.’

  I heard the other boys and young men rising from their beds around us as he spoke, listening to every word. Yet Caspar could make no accusation. All he had were his suspicions – and they were not enough. Caspar’s dislike was all too well known, and no one would believe him if he wailed it to the heavens. I tried not to smile at the thought as I gathered my wrap of tools and belted it on. My last morning in the abbey would be a strain, I was certain. Yet I would shake its dust from my sandals before the sun went down.

  They had taken poor Godwin to the infirmary, as Caspar finally admitted. I found that place almost as crowded as it had been for Wulfric’s amputation. I resolved then that if I ever did get the chance to rebuild the abbey, I would include more beds for those taken ill, or the dying. The world is harsh enough when we are well. It does not have to be cruel as we pass from it.

  As Wulfric had been before, Godwin lay stripped, with only a brief cloth over his groin to protect him from the vulgar gaze. Yet the chest did not rise and fall, and there was no pulse beating time at the throat and wrists. More tellingly, Godwin was a yellow gold – not dark and rich like bird’s-foot or daffodils, but delicate, as are the flowers of a bladder-seed. There was no mark on him and yet there was no sense of him being asleep. His colour was simply that of death. Once seen, it is not forgotten.

  I was surprised to feel tears prickle my eyes. Was he not mine enemy? My yoke and my trial? He was all those things, and yet there is something pitiful in seeing a young man’s life snuffed out.

  As I entered, Encarius looked up and gestured me closer. The crowd of boys and men parted. I kept my gaze on the corpse and my expression stern. I remembered the age Encarius had taken to peer into every fold and crevice of old Father Keats and I swallowed at the prospect of a repeat performance. The herbalist was thorough, I had to admit. The Church had forbidden the opening of bodies after death, but he could still prod and lift and observe. He would be disappointed. Sometimes, death just comes.

  I took a deep breath of clean air and nodded to Encarius, running my eye over the tools he had laid out.

  Before I could do more, a great wail went up, a sound to make any man wince. It was Abbot Simeon, who had lost his only son. I watched as he rushed to the body and pressed a hand to the cold face. I could not help thinking how poor a father he had been. Godwin had grown like a weed, untended. Perhaps if he had been pruned back once or twice, he would not have found an ending on that table.

  Behind the abbot, I saw Lady Elflaed enter and cover her mouth in shock before her view was firmly blocked and she was ushered out. Some things are not for gentle eyes, and it was only her curiosity and the distraction of the monks that had given her the chance to peer in at all. I’ve never been surprised that it was Eve who picked the apple. Women are worse than cats, I swear.

  To my dismay, Abbot Simeon refused to leave. Instead, he allowed them to find him a chair and sat staring as Encarius and I did worse work than we would have done without him there. It is hard to be thorough when you have to consider how a grieving father might react a few feet away. Forcing a little dribble of urine to judge and record its colour was hard on us all.

  Despite that tearful gaze, we did our best. Encarius found no mark or bruise to explain the sudden death of a strong young man. When I was asked, I said again how I’d thought Godwin had looked feverish over the previous few days, but had thought nothing of it. No one else had reported any sign of illness and Godwin had asked for neither balm nor tonic. In the end, Encarius sighed, stepping back. God gives and God takes away.

  Some of the senior men left with Abbot Simeon, perhaps to broach a cask of wine or some harder spirit. Encarius stood outside with his head upturned to the sky and his eyes shut, wiping his hands on a cloth. He had not been asked to accompany them, perhaps because of what they had watched him do. He and I shared a glance.

  ‘I know he was no friend of yours, Dunstan, but perhaps now you will see how petty it all was. We are given such a brief time here, before eternity, to make all our choices. If he had lived, I don’t doubt you would have become friends.’

  ‘I would have liked that,’ I said.

  It sounded like the lie it was, but he accepted I was trying to be kind. There was no one else around and he leaned closer to me.

  ‘Have you considered leaving with Lady Elflaed? I heard she asked for you.’

  I grew very still, my suspicions flaring. I had come to admire Encarius for his skills and knowledge – and he had shown me kindness at times. I understood that was not enough, t
hat I could not trust him. Friendship has always been a rare seam for me. I have been surprised by it once or twice, yet one thing is always true: when you are surrounded by enemies, the least cruel of them is not your friend.

  ‘I have prayed for guidance in the matter, for a sign to show me if I should stay here and be ordained, or walk a path to the court.’

  ‘I see. Well, you are a young man, so I imagine the idea of the court calls bright and strong in your thoughts. I don’t suppose my advice matters, Dunstan, but I will say it’s all fool’s gold in the end. Very little is important, in this world. Not success, not wealth, not power.’

  He had none of those things, so I imagine his words were a comfort to him. He lowered his eyebrows at me and gripped my arm in his hand. ‘Not love, certainly, though some would have it so.’

  I had also met his wife, so I nodded at that as he went on.

  ‘Not a belly full of food and ale either – why, the sparrows and the crows eat well enough! No – not the work of the forge, nor all the crafts a clever man can win for himself. All that matters, Dunstan, all – is your soul. You have a few years in this poor place, then you are judged for how you spent them – and consigned, either to God’s presence or eternal agonies.’

  ‘Is there no mercy, then?’ I said, uncomfortably.

  ‘You may hope for it, or pray for it. Dunstan, you may not depend on it.’

  ‘Thank you, father. I will think on what you have said.’

  He patted my shoulder and seemed pleased. He’d have gone to the king’s court if Elflaed had asked him. A choice is harder when there actually is one. Encarius would choose to stay, honest and uncorrupted, because no one had called him away.

  Encarius and I walked together to the chapel and sat side by side as we spoke and sang through the responses. I considered whether I should stay for the funeral. It would depend on my new patron, of course. If Lady Elflaed stayed, I would have little choice.

  Wulfric came to talk to me when the service ended. He and I could exchange much in a single glance and I knew he was pleased at Godwin’s fate, though he would not dare to whisper it in that place, where there were always ears to hear and condemn.