The Breath of Peace (12 page)

William ate a spoonful of stew – ‘You know, this really
is
nice, Madeleine' – and cut a small wedge from the round goat's cheese, adding it to a fragment of bread. ‘I do have a suggestion to offer,' he added, glancing at John; ‘but I fear it may be a bit controversial…'

‘Oh yes,' John answered him, laughing at this, ‘and heaven forfend that William de Bulmer should be the one to initiate anything controversial!'

William raised an eyebrow in mock disdain. ‘Brother Cormac is who I would choose,' he said.

‘Cormac? Oh. Heaven save us! I would never have thought – I can't imagine Cormac anywhere except the kitchen!'

‘No? Then it's time you moved him. His cooking's atrocious anyway. I don't see how you all survived it so long. Must be the holiest men on earth. Well, you are – you took me in.'

‘We did, and you pulled us into shape admirably in the short time you were with us. I don't think we're about to be crushed under the weight of our own haloes any time soon. But, Cormac – would he not… is he not… well – just a bit abrasive to be dealing with the folk who come and go? He has a good heart, and the brothers esteem him I think, but… he can be… difficult.'

William smiled. ‘So I've heard, but I think the legend is an exaggeration. Cormac is discreet, as I have discovered for myself, and he has a generous heart; he's a compassionate man, and it wouldn't do to make anybody cold or unimaginative your cellarer. As for being abrasive, good, bring it on! A cellarer must say “No” at least as often as “Yes”, and if people are scared to ask in the first place, all the better. The tradesmen and the tenants are forever trying to cheat you and presuming on your charity: you need a stout heart and a character that no one can intimidate standing at the gate. He's shrewd, nobody's fool; keeps his own counsel; not impressionable. No one can push him around, he does what he thinks is right and it's impossible to budge him. And, which is worth its weight in gold, he's intelligent. You put Brother Thaddeus or Father Chad in that seat and you can start making plans to close down the whole enterprise right now. Cormac's your man. I know he is.'

His gaze, bright and interested, rested on John's face. ‘What? Can you not see it?'

‘Oh – yes!' John turned the proposal over in his mind, considering. ‘The more I think about it, the more sense it makes. It's just that I would never have thought of it myself and I'm getting used to the idea. He isn't going to like it, you know. He's firmly burrowed into his nook in the kitchen. It's where he feels he belongs.'

‘Dig him out, then. Good for him.'

John nodded thoughtfully. ‘I will. That's a most excellent suggestion. Thank you. I knew you'd know. Will you still come and help us though? Just look over the books for me, and – once I've had chance to ask him – show Cormac what's needed and help him. It's a big favour to ask, I do realize. It might need you to make two or three trips over to us. Can you… would you?'

‘Not only is it unlikely that I would refuse you anything, but yes, I'm sure this is an easy thing for me to do. I will come… Of course I'll help you. Only…' he spoke softly, avoiding John's eyes: ‘it will be difficult for me to do this without having some conversation with a number of the brothers – your kitcheners and fraterer, your guestmaster, Father James in the robing room, your sacristan, and Father Gilbert and Father Clement – maybe Brother Thaddeus and Brother Stephen too. What do you… what would you feel about that?'

The healer in John saw clearly the hurt in William's sense of exclusion from the community. ‘I think I feel I could trust you to take care of this for us,' he said. ‘And I think I can trust our brothers in community to understand.'

William nodded. ‘All right then. When?' He grinned, as John hesitated, embarrassed. ‘Oh, I see – yesterday is hardly soon enough! Well, what does my lady say? If I go back with your brother, I shall be some nights away – as few as possible, but more than one. Is that – can you manage? You may even feel our livestock is in safer hands with me ten miles away!'

His eyes, rueful, looking for reassurance, sought hers. She looked back, her face teasing him, knowing she could shame and embarrass him with the story of the hens. But she did not.

‘It sounds as though they need you, my husband,' she replied. ‘I'm sure I can manage on my own for a night – or even two or three if they find they can't spare you.'

William still hesitated. ‘The only thing is… John, I'd promised Madeleine she might take a few days to come up and visit with you herself. It doesn't seem quite fair… I know you're here now, but… Do you see what I mean?'

‘Oh, nonsense, don't mind me!' Madeleine cut in quickly. ‘They need you, husband. You must go. We can take turns. I'll go when you come back.'

‘Well… if you're sure… It's just… well, it seemed to matter very much…'

She waved his misgivings aside, and William thought it probably best to commit to silence the extent of the importance she had attached to the visit when they had discussed it before, and the tears that had been shed on that occasion. His eyes questioned hers. She nodded, impatiently. Her brother needed him. What more was there to be said?

When they had finished their meal, they left the scraps and plates on the table, wanting to show John their home before he and William had to be on the road – the days were short, the sun began setting in the late afternoon, and no one wanted to be out on the road longer than they must after night folded down.

John rejoiced with them in their spacious homestead. Being daytime, the hens were out foraging, so no explanation was necessary as to why their numbers should be so surprisingly few. He appreciated and affirmed and admired, and delighted in their pride and pleasure in their home. And then, William having fetched a cloak and put together his small necessities in a bag, he and John went out to make ready the horses while Madeleine cleared away the remains of their meal. Suddenly remembering their conversation about her own plans to visit her brother, she ran upstairs to the chest where the curling ram's horn was stored away, that William had suggested she take with her as a gift to the abbey. She brought it down and opened the pack her husband had left ready on the table, tucking the horn in between the spare hose and shirt folded there.

Hearing the clop and scrape of horses' feet out in the yard, she laced the pack up tight again, and carried it out to where John and William stood ready to make their farewell.

John embraced Madeleine, then was up in the saddle. William took his wife in his arms. ‘I'll not be long,' he murmured, ‘my dearest love.' And he pressed his lips in tenderness to her brow, holding her close to him before he mounted the palfrey standing patiently there at his side.

‘What's your horse's name?' she had asked him, when first they met. She had laughed at the name – Nightmare – when he told her then. She understood, now she knew more about the history of the man who chose the name, how easily that might have sprung to mind.

As she opened the gate and held it for them to pass through, calling a farewell after them before she turned back to the chores of the afternoon, Madeleine reflected on the complicated weather of William's inner world. She did not understand him, she concluded as she usually did; but nevertheless, he was the only man for her, and always would be.

* * *

‘So, what is it? What's wrong?' John asked into the silence between them.

‘Nay, I'm well,' William responded with carefully casual ease, sitting his horse gracefully as they ambled along the track that climbed up from the valley. ‘I keep remarkably well. I've had no further problems with my chest this winter, which I wondered if I might – pneumonia leaves a permanent weakness, so I've heard. Brother Michael said I must always take care to keep warm and keep out of the draughts. But I've kept well.'

When his words ceased, for a while the creak of leather and the steady multiple tread of their horses' hooves on the turf were the only sounds. And the harsh cawing of a crow perched on the winter-bare branch of a small tree grown out of true by the insistence of the prevailing wind.

‘Oh, come on, William! Don't lie to me!'

Again the silence, the steady beat of the horses' feet, the creak of the saddles.

‘Abbot John Hazell, you have healer's eyes and you know me too well, both of which are unfair advantages.'

Tread. Creak. Tread. Creak. Tread. Creak.

‘Are you going to tell me, then? Is all not well between you and Madeleine?'

William moved his head, hunted, exasperated, cornered.

‘Madeleine is more willing to be patient with me than most would be,' he said eventually. ‘Our situation is such as to find out all my inadequacies. I never imagined a man could spend such a disproportionate amount of time thinking about firewood and mud. Every new day brings me face to face with the need for skills I have never learned. I can eat my fair share of the bread of humiliation, and I'm certainly used to its flavour by this time, but it gives a man a bit of a bellyache nonetheless. That's all you've seen, nothing serious. It gets me down at times, is all.'

‘I see. Well, where we're going now you will certainly find yourself both skilled and handy. No mistake about it, we sorely need your guidance and your help.'

‘Aye, well that of itself is a gift to me. I'm grateful to be of service.'

‘So… there is nothing else? Nothing amiss? Nothing troubling you? You seem out of sorts to me. Look, William, Madeleine's my sister. I grew up with her. I know her like myself. She is the truest, kindest soul – and she can also be devastatingly honest, witheringly scornful, over particular, very dismissive, and she will never let
anything
go. Are you trying to tell me you're finding that easy to live with?'

Tread. Creak. Tread. Tread. Creak. Tread. William felt his friend's perspicacious gaze on him; kind, teasing, gentle.

‘Aye, she can be all of that.' He paused. ‘Married life,' he admitted eventually, ‘with Madeleine, is like a precarious walk along the top of a hurdle never made to bear a man's weight, while one person pelts you with cabbages and another intermittently takes you by surprise throwing a bucket of cold water in your face. Never dull. But it's easy enough to complain. What about me? You've lived with me too, and was that an easy ride?'

John laughed. ‘It was not! Well, it's been a year and the two of you are still married, and it's me begging you to come back and help us, not you beseeching me to take you in. I've heard people say the first year of marriage is the hardest. Novitiate struggles, I guess. So, all's well? Truly?'

William hesitated. ‘It hasn't been the best week in our marriage. We're all right, but… I… a number of things… not the least of which was…'

John waited, saying nothing, watching William's face tighten into a mask.

‘I broke the bread bowl that Brother Thaddeus made.'

He said it steadily, with absolute control; but then his jaw clenched and his mouth hardened into a bloodless line, and he said no more, focusing hard on the palfrey's ears.

John smiled. ‘And Madeleine was upset?'

William neither replied nor looked at him; he merely nodded in affirmation.

‘Oh. Well, that's no matter. I'm glad you told me. Bowls are only made out of clay, and Brother Thaddeus has nothing to do but make pots from it. He can make you another. I'll ask him when we get home. It'll be the least we can do, putting yourself to all this trouble to come and help us.'

He spoke gently. William reined in his mount, and sat completely still, his hand raised to his eyes and pressed hard against them.

‘Stop it, John,' he mumbled after a moment, John having paused alongside him, waiting. ‘How do you do this? How do you always
get
to me? You un-man me completely – you and Madeleine both! There is no hiding place from either of you!'

His breath drew in sharp and ragged, but he made the necessary effort to gain mastery over himself, dropped his hand to the saddle pommel again and, with a squeeze of his knees and nudge from his feet, set his palfrey once more in motion.

He turned his head to look at John. ‘Can we talk about something else? Anything that's not me. Tell me something to help me look at the present state of the community household. Have you any special work in hand?'

‘No, we bumble along as usual. The money that came to us from Mother Cottingham put us back into a manageable position, and you had identified for us the supplies we were lacking, which Brother Ambrose was able to order in before he died, happily, using the extra money. Things are fairly quiet now, between Martinmas and Easter. Not many guests. Although – oh, yes, I should tell you about that – there is one small thing afoot. Lady Agnes d'Ebassier took it into her head that it would be lovely for her sisters – she has five sisters – each to have an identical copy of the Book of Hours we made for her, and she wants to present them to her sisters at the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary in May. So we've needed to order in a quantity of gold and more pigments for ink, and some better vellum than we had. Father James is going to make some corners and clasps for us in chased silver. Everyone in the scriptorium, and a number of men who aren't, has been busy on that. Father Theodore graciously gave us every hour he could spare from the novitiate – he's the best of us at the illuminated capitals and illustrations by a long way. Anyone at a loose end has been sent along to the scriptorium to help with the task. Father Clement said Father Francis could do some of the pages of the office of None, because he says everybody falls asleep in None so they won't pay much attention to what they're reading – which I thought was more waspish than he needed to be. He won't let him paint the illuminations, but agreed he could fill in the capital. I'm surprised Francis wanted to do it at all, in fact, after Clement had finished detailing his caveats and provisos, but Father Francis is a gracious man. I sent Brother Thomas along, but he was back almost before I knew it, saying, “Father Clement asks me to pass on to you that I should know by now there's no ‘h' in ‘coelis' and don't bother to send me again.” It's been an expensive project but should bring a good return. We haven't talked about Lady Agnes paying us for them, but there's no doubt in my mind Sir Geoffrey will make us a more than generous gift – he always does.