The Beautiful Thread (6 page)

Chapter
Two

“S
o, you've met Florence. Would you like to be there when Hannah and Gervase come to see me? Is that helpful?”

William shook his head. “The path I've taken has created consequences – as all decisions do. It's not realistic to hope a man can be what I've been and do as I've done without incurring some associated curtailments and forfeits. That's not how life is. I think, especially while Bishop Eric is here, there should be no question that I am here too. LePrique was never acquainted with me, neither was Florence, so I'm hoping we can get away with that; but Hannah knows me well. It's risky to rely even on the community for discretion, though I think we can. They will have the sense – I hope – to give away nothing of my presence. Let's just leave it like that. Maybe I'll have a chance to observe Gervase in some casual setting; but I do believe I must concentrate on fading and vanishing while I'm here. I've moved my bits and pieces into your hayloft, you know. Out of sight. Best keep things that way.”

John saw the force of this, and William set off for the kitchens, for Brother Conradus to approve the list he and Cormac had made of provisions still to be obtained in the near future.

“Will you need me?” asked Brother Tom, setting out the chairs for John's visitors.

“Er… no. Probably not. They're only coming to talk; they won't need feeding. I'll need you this evening, because Bishop Eric will be dining with me here, and possibly Brainard too – I'm not quite sure of the protocol; if it would be expected that Brainard eats always in the guesthouse or sometimes with me. I think I'd better ask Francis; he'll know. And I believe Gervase Bonvallet's brothers – Hubert and Percival – are coming up this afternoon. Conradus said they have several casks of special wine from France, and they want to move it now so it has time to settle before it's broached. So I guess they'd better stay for supper too. The daylight lasts to see them safely home afterwards at this time of year. They've only got to ride a mile or two beyond the village. Francis will eat with us, and I think maybe Father Gilbert. He can talk to them about the music for the wedding, and he… well, he comes of an aristocratic family. He and Francis will fit in with them better than I do. I did ask William, but he said he'd make himself scarce while his Lordship is with us. So we may be a party of seven here this evening, but nothing that needs your attention during the day.”

“Have I your permission, then, to be out with Brother Stephen?”

“Remind me of what you were doing.”

“We need to go up onto t' moor to gather a goodly lot of bracken for a first layer under the hayricks when we build them – it keeps the damp from the hay so it doesn't rot, and the rats don't like it. We always spread a thick layer of it first, but it's tough work gathering it – rough old stuff. It's a help if there's two of us.”

“But…” John frowned, puzzled. “Wouldn't you get it in during the autumn?”

“Aye, we do. But we ran so short of hay and straw for animal bedding last year, because so much of what we had went mouldy with all that rain. We had bracken set by for when we built the ricks, but we used it up. It doesn't matter. Bracken doesn't harbour damp like grass. If we gather it now, it'll dry out as much as it needs to and be ready for when we fetch the hay in. And Brother Walafrid said, would we get some for him to make his next lot of soap.”

John hesitated.

“I don't have to go,” admitted Tom, but his abbot perceived the moral effort it cost him to say it, and he laughed.

“No, that's all right – of course you can. But will you call by the kitchen and see to it that Brother Conradus brings some cakes and wine for the bishop this afternoon? And make sure he's aware of how many we'll be, eating here tonight.”

Tom grinned cheerfully. “Aye, I will! I should be back by the afternoon, anyway. We'll take some bread and cheese with us, and go this morning. I'll look around the ditches on the farm as well, see if there's any meadowsweet blooming yet, to strew in here for your supper guests. Bit early in the year yet, but I'll see what there is.”

John felt his enthusiasm, the tug of the outdoors on his spirit, and was glad he'd not required him to be confined inside, patiently waiting on his abbot's guests.

“I'm grateful to you, Tom,” he said. “Thank you for helping me and steering me through. I know it's not easy.”

“Nay, it's a privilege – a joy, really,” replied his esquire. “Don't fret; I'll not be long away.”

No sooner had Tom left by the cloister door, bound for the farm and the open moorland that rose above it, than John heard the knock on the door to the abbey court, heralding the arrival of Hannah and Gervase.

“Welcome!” He gestured them in.

Gervase, without really thinking about it, took his seat in one of the two chairs available that John indicated. Hannah paused, then changed direction and chose to sit instead on one of the two low stools, the only other seats. She left the remaining chair for the abbot. He smiled at her. “Thank you.” He took his seat in the chair she left him. “Now, then. How's everything going? All well? Happy? Looking forward to it?”

Hannah grinned. Gervase looked at him as if John had lost his mind.

“It's a nightmare,” he said. “My mother – you have no idea! When I'm by myself, it all seems straightforward. When I'm with Hannah, I come home to myself, I start to be who I really am. Everything falls into place. Then my mother starts up, and by the time she's finished I'm overflowing with shame and guilt and misery, worried that I'm ruining Hannah's life and destroying my children's chances of happiness, disgracing the family name and disappointing my father –”

“Has he said so?” John interrupted.

“My father? He's said barely a word. Shrugged, looked away, muttered things along the lines of ‘On your own head be it', and retreated into silence. Yes, if I'm honest, I think I probably have disappointed him. But then again, I think there may have been something inevitable about that from the day I was born. I'm not like him. I don't think like him. I let him down by being the lad I am. But what can I do about that? I have tried. I've done what I can to please them. But this… I really want this, Father. I really do. I think my family will not actually disown us. I believe my father has plans to give us a small farm of our own a few miles away. He just doesn't want us anywhere near him and my mother. He won't be unkind. He won't disinherit me. So long as we keep our distance and don't do anything to embarrass the family.”

John let the bleak chill of these thoughts settle into his marrow like wet snow.

“My family – my ma and da, my brothers – they are happy for us,” said Hannah softly. “And my da and my brother will help us if we do have our own farm. Help us get started.”

John smiled at her. “And are you looking forward to your wedding day, Hannah?”

“Aye! Indeed I am! I know what Gervase's family thinks of me – they've made it plain. But they've been good to us even so, Father. I mean, look, they've stumped up for a grand feast, nothing spared. And I'm so excited about the minstrels – there's to be jugglers. And a lady to play a harp. I think that will be beautiful. A great big harp, it's to be. She'll have to bring it on a cart! I… I think – I hope – it'll be a very special day, Father John; don't you?”

Hannah spoke bravely, but he could see she had lost much of the bounce and sparkle natural to her in these recent weeks. He remembered the day he had walked up the last few miles to St Alcuin's, returning to take up the abbacy after a year away. He'd met her out with her goats, waving joyously when she recognized him walking up the track, running down to greet him, enfolding him in an exuberant, affectionate hug. She looked more restrained now.

“It will be a joyous day,” he said firmly. “All the angels singing. You seem to me very well suited to one another. I think the way lies clear for you to be happy. The gift of a farm is a generous prospect indeed. And if that comes about, though I doubt we can offer much help in the way of labour, don't hesitate to ask us if you need advice – Brother Stephen, Brother Thomas; there's not much they don't know.

“It's not – this discouragement – it's not a bad thing, really, you know. To enter into a marriage, well, it's in accord with our human nature, but even so it's wise to be sure. Much as, though there are monasteries up and down the breadth of the land, even so, when a young man comes to us and says he has a calling, we test it, we probe it, we go slowly. It's not a thing to go into lightly. Still, it is a blessed thing, and I for one will have a heart overflowing with joy when you tie the knot.”

Gervase looked at him curiously. Something of his mother there, thought the abbot, unerringly detecting the slightly false note in the fulsome reassurances of angels singing and a joyous heart, but forbearing from comment. John hoped they would find contentment in taking their way together. It didn't seem entirely likely, somehow. But they believed in their love. Who was he to blight it any further than it already had been? Let them take their chances. Especially seeing as they already had two children.

“In a community like ours,” he said, “we have all kinds of men from many different family backgrounds. They come with a variety of assumptions about life, all quickly overturned. Our rule of thumb is to remember that each one is doing his best, each one has his struggles. To give one another the benefit of the doubt. To cultivate a sense of humour. To think twice before making any sort of rebuke. And to be kind. Vocation is noble, but the charcoal beds of everyday life are what filter and refine it from its original condition into something pure and useable.

“A marriage is a community as well – the two of you, your children, the lads and lasses who work together with you in your house and on your fields. Community begins with two, I suppose.”

They heard him with courtesy; they had little to ask, and no comment to make. Like most who came to see him, they regarded him with a certain degree of awe, and tremendous respect. John found this almost unbelievable, but accepted the reality of it. And he supposed he relied on it to make his life manageable. If everyone who came into the abbot's house felt free to expand in his company and chat away freely, not much would get done. If they were shy in his presence, at least it kept the conversation shorter than it might have been, and left more time for the next in line.

After they had gone, he sat for a while in silence and stillness, thinking about the young couple and the picture they had sketched for him. He felt uneasy about their future. He imagined the difference it could have made if Gervase's mother and father had taken delight in their love. He thought of Gervase saying his father wouldn't “be unkind”, meaning nothing more than that he would not be entirely estranged. He wondered if Gervase had ever really known what kindness looked like, before he knew Hannah.

“Oh God, Father of us all,” he whispered into the silence, “breathe your kindness like a fragrance into our lives. Raise us up to be sons of God. Lift us out of the dust of half-measures and ingrained meanness. Raise us up. Breathe your kindness through our lives.”

He sat a moment longer, then on the impulse of sudden resolve left his atelier and went along the cloister and up the day stairs to the novitiate, in search of Father Theodore. He hesitated at the door – which stood ajar – hearing familiar voices inside. He realized that occupying his morning with the wedding couple had left the bishop at a loose end. Evidently he'd thought he might as well get on with his Visitation.

“And what do you think, Brother Robert” – this was the bishop – “of Peter Lombard's
Libri Quatuor Sententiarum?
I think I want to ask you in particular what you think of William of Ockham's commentary thereon.”

John could easily picture Father Theodore physically ceasing to breathe as this question was put. To take a novice as essentially clueless as Brother Robert into the treacherous territory of borderline heresy seemed hardly fair. Sure enough, it was Theo's voice, not Robert's, next heard in reply – low, respectful.

“Ah, your Lordship! Ockham's commentary runs into ten volumes, as you know. We have touched upon them, but not covered them – yet – in depth. Our studies this year have focused on the theology of the Eucharist. But we have discussed Ockham's razor, Brother Robert, have we not?”

“Really?” The bishop again; though a second voice murmuring, LePrique's, urging a reminder. Evidently at this point Brother Robert was forgetting to smile. The bishop once more: “Tell me what you have learned of
lex parsimoniae
, then, Brother Robert – of Ockham's razor.”

“He… it's… I think… um… it's about doing your best to keep things simple. Not complicating everything. Because a razor is narrow and sharp, and cuts through the – er – through the …” Yes. John could well imagine what Theo might originally have said. “He – Ockham – he thought that you could get in a muddle if you made too many assumptions. Better to start small.”

“
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
” Brother Cassian, having the temerity to interrupt, albeit quietly and with humility. He must have seen Robert struggling, and the approach to novitiate studies they were used to with Theo could better be described as a free-for-all than wait-until-you're-spoken-to.

“Aha!” exclaimed his Lordship. “Go on, then – say more?”

“It means you don't exceed what is necessary, in your thinking,” Brother Cassian explained. “That if you have two explanations, you should ditch the fancy one in favour of the plain one. Unless the fancy one is for some reason better. So, you take the best one, but always the simplest best one. Not try to choose something complicated just to show off and look clever. And you should assume things are just natural and straightforward unless you have reason to think otherwise. So if you hear a bump in the night from the next cell, you assume someone has fallen out of bed, not that they're wrestling with an angel. Because it's more likely, even if it could in principle be an angel.”