The Breath of Peace (19 page)

‘Thanks,' he said. ‘Well… I'll be getting along then. I guess it's nearly time for chapel. You… you do a good job here, brother. This work is in good hands.'

Conradus beamed at him. Then as Cormac slipped out of the small scope of the light of candle, lantern and embers, into the darkness of the doorway, it suddenly dawned on Brother Conradus that something was very wrong, and he had been so taken up with his own inner world that he'd never even thought to ask what. Horrified at his selfishness, his heartless self-absorption, Conradus half thought to abandon the batch of dough, snatch up the lantern and run after his brother. In his imagination he actually did it. But common sense prevailed. The entire community would need good bread properly and attentively made, to enjoy a satisfying breakfast. He continued kneading until the dough came up supple and silky, then dipped a clean cloth in the kettle of water and wrung out the drips onto the stone flags of the floor. With practised hands he wiped a light coating of olive oil all over the big, soft lump of dough, swaddled it in the warm, wet cloth, and left it in the great bread bowl to rise, well away from the warmth of the dying fire, in the cool of the night. He took the dipper and scooped out some water to wash his hands free of all clinging remnants of flour and then scrubbed down the board. He glanced at the dishes Cormac had brought across from the abbot's lodging, wondering if he should tackle them tonight, but felt relieved to hear the first tolling of the Compline bell. That would have to wait until the morning, then. He took off his apron and hung it up. They were in silence now. He blew out both candles, hanging the lantern Cormac had left back on the forged hook nailed to the wall, where it belonged, and set off for chapel. As he joined the rest of the community making their way into the choir, he wondered what had been troubling Brother Cormac. He had seemed so very sad tonight.

Chapter
Five

William gave the palfrey's flank an affectionate slap, wished his wife Godspeed, and stood back to watch her ride out. He took in her merry smile as she looked back and waved to him, and could not help noticing she seemed in brighter mood than she had for some time. He was not sure why. She loved her brother, he knew, and it would gladden her heart to see him and all the brothers at St Alcuin's. She had been used to freedom and independence before she married, and taking off for a few days on her own probably felt like a joyous adventure. And through the winter, life had been much confined to indoors by wet and cold. This morning, for an hour or two at least, the sun shone: it was a good day for a ride up into the hills. What nagged at him, and he would not even look at it in case it might be true, was the fear that his company did not satisfy her; that she found him oppressive and felt weary of being with him, beset as he was with so many ghouls of memory, so much baggage from the past. Maybe something healthy in her tugged to be free.

He closed the gate and lifted over the iron latch that pivoted from one side to fasten the other. Madeleine had worked hard to see that she left everything neat and in good order, nothing for him to worry about. He felt sure that in a few minutes he would think of something to do, but just at that moment a wash of sadness seeped cold through his soul, and he stood quite still. Love, he thought, turned out to be a wonderful thing that brought a man fully alive; but astonishingly painful at times.

She had left bread dough to rise, and instructions as to its baking, which she had made him repeat. He supposed that learning to make himself a loaf might be a constructive way to spend a morning. He entered their house, resolutely refusing to consider the emptiness of absence he felt there. He took the cloth from the dough, trying to remember how long ago she had left it. ‘Doubled in size,' she'd said it must be. William wondered how anyone could gauge that. It grew gradually. Had it finished? How big had it been before? He saw that she had left ready the bundle of dry sticks she'd told him would be needed to heat the oven. ‘Nothing is hotter than a fire of sticks,' she'd said, ‘and you do have to get it really hot.' William felt ashamed to admit even to himself that he had not the least idea how to ascertain how hot was really hot, so that he'd know when the oven was right for the dough to go in. ‘Make a little flour paste to seal it,' she'd said. That didn't sound too complicated anyway. He rolled up his sleeves.

* * *

The rain came on when she had still three miles to cover. It came down hard and persistent. By the time she reached the abbey, she was sodden and shivering. Brother Martin opened the gate for her to ride in, and hitched the palfrey to one of the iron rings fixed into the wall of the sheltered gatehouse entrance. He lifted down her saddle packs, and grinned at her cheerfully.

‘Leave your mount here, Mistress Hazell, and I'll ask Brother Peter to give her a rub down and settle her in the stable. I'll bring these across to the guesthouse for you – if what's in your pack is as wet as what you have on, come and rummage in the almonry trunks, I expect we have something no worse than damp. By heaven, that was some cloudburst, was it not! Still, Brother Dominic has a fire going, I should think, so you can stand and steam and warm yourself up a little. A hot drink and a hot meal and you'll begin to feel more like yourself. Father John's expecting you, is he?'

Grateful for the kindly welcome, Madeleine lengthened her stride to keep pace with him as he hastened through the rain to the guesthouse.

‘I think so,' she answered him. ‘I came up just because I missed you all – he knew I would be coming sometime soon, but I didn't say exactly today. I haven't written to… to Father John.' She felt she must make an effort to let go of her habit of clinging to her brother's baptismal name, Adam. She supposed it might be more respectful to his choices in life and his status to call him John, his name in religion, especially now he was an abbot.

‘If he's too busy I shall understand,' she said; ‘but if he has any time to see me I'll be so grateful.'

Brother Martin gave her into the care of Brother Dominic at the guesthouse, promising to bring her word of John's whereabouts and availability once he had her horse stabled and had chance to send someone over to the abbot's house to check.

‘Mistress Hazell,' he had called her, through force of habit: but Brother Martin recognized the grey palfrey as William's. So did Brother Peter when he led the horse away to the stables. Neither one of them commented to the other, but it answered a question that had lingered in the minds of them both. It had indeed been no coincidence, then, that William de Bulmer and Mistress Hazell had left one upon the heels of the other. It was a grave thing indeed for a man to break his vows like that. Even so God, and not his brothers, would be his judge. Both Brother Martin and Brother Peter had been a long while in monastic life; they turned away reflexively from both speculation and condemnation. Mistress Hazell – or would it be Goodwife de Bulmer now? – was still their abbot's family; and they would always welcome her.

Brother Dominic's cheerful smile warmed Madeleine's heart. It felt good to be here. He held the door open and welcomed her out of the wind into the warmth, taking her bags from Brother Martin with a nod of thanks.

‘Hang that on the pegs here, where it has some hope of drying,' he said as she unclasped her cloak and swung it off her shoulders. ‘And put your shoes on the hearth – there, that's better! If I light you a candle from the fire here, there's the makings of a fire in the chamber upstairs – go right ahead and light it, for I'm thinking you'll be wanting to spread your bits and pieces out to air. Let me take these up for you, and I'll put some soup on to heat up. You chose your time well! A week later and we'd have been into Lent, and you know our starvation rations are a marvel to behold even with the best efforts of Brother Conradus – we do well to keep body and soul together! But this week we're eating up all the leftovers of eggs and butter and such, and no pilgrims here just yet. I think I can promise you a quiet stay and a good supper!'

Madeleine separated the bundles containing gifts for the brothers from her bag of clothes, leaving the gifts on the table and following Brother Dominic upstairs. She felt comforted and lifted by his welcome. The memory of the home she had left flashed back into her imagination: William's face, so often tense and defensive, and the endless arguments that rose like marsh gas out of nowhere. She put it from her. It felt good indeed to be here, though a wave of anxiety flooded through her as she wondered if he would remember to shut up the hens, and not to strip Marigold's udder out when he was milking but let her finish drying off in time for her kid to be born and not let the milk supply build again; and if he would think to check at midday that the beasts hadn't run short of water. Resolutely she shut her home out of her mind. She had come to see her brother, and she meant to enjoy her visit.

Her clothes in the bag felt damp and looked crumpled. She thought it unwise to light and leave the fire in the chamber – she would light it later, when she settled down for the night. So she snuffed out the candle. Little sunshine broke through the clouds this day, but still she had enough light to see. Though her cloak had been wet through, she judged her dress still wearable, and her body heat should assuredly dry it better than it would dry on its own. She contented herself with spreading the garments from her pack – nothing much: a spare woollen chemise and kirtle and kerchief, woollen hose, a warm shawl and a net for her hair. She left the bag and her comb there with them, but kept her small store of money with her in the neat leather purse hung from the pretty girdle she had woven herself. On second thoughts she decided her spare kerchief felt drier than the one she wore, so she took off the blue linen one she had on and spread it out over the foot of the bed. She knotted in place her new cream-coloured kerchief woven of the softest unplyed yarn, picked up the extinguished candle and her shawl, and hastened back down the staircase to the hall below. As she reached the bottom step, she saw her brother sitting on a stool by the hearth, peacefully watching the flames and chatting with Brother Dominic as he waited for her.

‘No soup, I fear, Mistress Hazell!' Brother Dominic moved forward to greet her. ‘Our abbot says you're to sup with him. Never mind. We'll feed you up at breakfast!'

Madeleine smiled at him.
Mistress Hazell
. She wondered whether to correct it, and thought it might create awkwardness. She knew if she just left it, that word of her new status would find its oblique and mysterious way round the community as unobtrusively as a wisp of smoke. Before she went home most of the brothers would know exactly whose name she now bore. So she let it lie, and just smiled, and gave him back the candle. Neither did her brother make any comment on the mistake, though she felt sure it would not have gone unnoticed. He stood up to greet her, and as he enveloped her in the affection of his embrace, she knew without doubt this visit would do her good.

‘Have you had a chance to make yourself comfortable?' he asked her. ‘Will you come across to Vespers and then to my house for supper? I have no other guests, I was intending to eat in the frater – you've picked a good time to come.'

Happily, Madeleine walked across the familiar ground of the abbey court at her brother's side, her shawl wrapped round her against the sharp chill of the air even now the rain had eased off. They parted in the church as he went through to the choir and she took her seat in the parish benches. A feeling of such peace welled up inside her as the prayers flowed into the beautiful chanting of Mary's song –
Magnificat anima mea Dominum: et exsultavit spiritus meus in Deo, salutari meo
…

Something hard-pressed and almost exhausted in her began to relax. She had no need to fret about the horse and whether somebody had fed it. She didn't have to cook supper, or clear it away, or do the milking or feed the pig or check the hens had all come in to roost. She had nothing to do here but give herself up to the ancient heartbeat of prayer, and welcome into her soul the silent immensity of God's presence, going down to depths unimaginable, and spreading more boundless than the sweep of the sky above the moor.
Thank you…
her tired soul whispered.
Thank you
…

After Vespers, as her brother stood aside to allow her to pass before him into the abbot's lodging, she felt oddly as though here she had come home.

* * *

At dusk, before the fox came prowling, William had fed the hens, counted to make sure they had both come in safely, and locked their door securely. He had milked Marigold with a sense of exultation that she trusted him these days, and would stand easy and let down her milk for him with no trouble. He took care not to strip out her udder completely, so as to gradually finish letting her dry off now she was in kid and so near her time. He filled her rack with fresh hay, and took the milk, a scant cup barely worth having these days, into the house. What remained of the morning's milk he mixed with meal and scraps for Lily the pig, keeping the new milk for his oatmeal in the morning. He took Lily her supper, tossing her half a bucket of apples he had sorted out in the store during the afternoon. They were wrinkled and their skins waxy now, but they tasted good, with an intensity of sweetness that Lily enjoyed immensely. William thought she had the worst table manners of any living being he'd ever beheld, and never liked to stay to watch her get to grips with what he brought her.

He lit the fire and investigated the bread he'd made. Madeleine had told him he would know it was cooked when it sounded hollow if he knocked it. He'd burned his fingers sealing up the oven, and had little enthusiasm for knocking on the charred crust of the loaf he brought forth an hour afterwards. Even when he did, he couldn't decide if it sounded hollow or not. And what if it didn't? He had no plans to reheat the oven and seal it up all over again.