The Forest (30 page)

It did not wholly displease Grockleton that this peasant should be afraid of him. ‘And why should I do anything for you now?’ he demanded.

‘If I told you something important, for the good of the abbey, something nobody knows, might you see your way …?’

‘It’s possible.’ Grockleton considered.

‘It would be bad for one of the monks, though.’

Grockleton frowned. ‘Which monk?’

‘Brother Adam. It’d be very bad for him.’

‘What is it?’ The prior could not conceal the glint in his eye.

Luke saw it. This was what he needed. ‘You’ve got to send him away. No scandal. That’d be bad for the abbey anyway. He’s got to go away. And I’ve got to come back, with no more Forest court or anything. You can arrange that. I need your word.’

Grockleton hesitated. He understood deals and his word was his word. But there was an obvious difficulty. ‘Priors don’t bargain with lay brothers,’ he said frankly.

‘You’ll never hear another sound from me afterwards. That’s my word.’

Grockleton pondered. He put it all in the balance. He thought also of the reaction of the court and the foresters, who he knew very well were sick of him, if they heard this honest fellow speak as eloquently in court as he had just done now. He might be better off with Luke on his side. And then … Luke said he had something on Brother Adam. ‘If it’s good, you have my word,’ he heard himself saying.

So Luke betrayed Brother Adam and his sister Mary.

Except, Grockleton thought as he listened to the peasant, that it was not really a betrayal. Seen from Luke’s point of view there was something profoundly natural about it. He saw his sister’s family about to be blasted by a storm; so he was protecting them. A sudden blow, the shedding of blood; it was just nature.

Nor did the perfect balance of the thing escape the prior. Once Adam was gone, Mary would have no choice but to live in peace with her husband. The child would be treated as Tom’s. It was in nobody’s interest to say a word. Except his own, of course, if he wanted entirely to destroy Brother Adam. But even that made no sense. For if he exposed Adam, he’d damage the abbey’s reputation. And what would the abbot say about that? No, the peasant’s judgement was good. Besides. He thought of something else, something in the secret book, known only to the abbot. He had to be a little careful himself.

What of Luke, though? Could he be trusted to behave himself? Probably. He had no wish to hurt his sister by making trouble, though he continued to hold the threat of his knowledge about the monk as a sort of protection. In any case, I’m better off with him safely inside the abbey than outside, the prior considered.

And so, for the first time in his life, Grockleton started to think like an abbot.

With what joy, a few days later, the monks of Beaulieu learned that their abbot had returned and that, so far as he knew, there were no plans for him to depart from them again in the foreseeable future.

Brother Adam, too, was glad. His only concern was lest the abbot, out of a now mistaken sense of kindness, should decide to relieve him of his duties at the granges. He had prepared for this carefully, however. His record was excellent. It would take anyone else a year to learn what he now knew. Who else would want the job? For the good of the abbey he should certainly keep it another year or two. All in all, he hoped he was well prepared.

As for his guilty secret, he had learned to get through the offices now without the terror of giving himself away. He had already, he confessed to himself, become hardened in his sin. He was just glad the abbot knew nothing, that was all.

When he received a summons to present himself before the abbot and the prior one morning he was prepared for everything except what awaited him.

The abbot looked friendly, if somewhat thoughtful, when he entered. Grockleton was sitting there, leaning forward with his claw on the table as usual. But Adam was too glad to be looking at the abbot again to take much notice of the prior. And it was the abbot, not Grockleton, who spoke. ‘Now, Adam, we know all about your love affair with Mary Furzey. Fortunately neither her husband nor the brethren in the abbey do. So I’d just like you to tell us about it in your own words.’

Grockleton had wanted to ask him whether he had anything to confess and give him the chance to perjure himself, but the abbot had overruled him.

It did not take long. If his humiliation was complete, the abbot did nothing to prolong it. ‘This will remain a secret,’ he told Adam, ‘for the sake of the abbey and, I may add, for that of the woman and her family. You must leave here at once. Today. But I want no one to know why.’

‘Where am I to go?’

‘I’m sending you to our daughter house down in Devon. To Newenham. Nobody will think that strange. They’ve been struggling a bit down there and you are – or were – one of our best monks.’

Adam bowed his head. ‘May I say farewell to Mary Furzey?’

‘Certainly not. You are to have no communication with her whatsoever.’

‘I am surprised’ – it was Grockleton now, he couldn’t resist it – ‘that you should even think of such a thing.’

‘Well.’ Adam sighed. Then he looked at Grockleton sadly, though without malice. ‘You have never done such a thing.’

There was silence in the room. The claw did not move. Perhaps the prior might have stooped forward a little lower over the dark old table. The abbot’s face was a mask as he gazed carefully into the middle distance. So Brother Adam did not guess that in the abbot’s secret book there was a notation concerning John of Grockleton and a woman, and a child. But that had been in another monastery, far away in the north, a long time ago.

After he had gone the abbot asked: ‘He doesn’t know she’s pregnant, does he?’

‘No.’

‘Better he shouldn’t.’

‘Quite.’ Grockleton nodded.

‘Oh dear.’ The abbot sighed. ‘We are none of us safe from falling, as you know,’ he added meaningfully.

‘I know.’

‘I want him given two pairs of new shoes,’ the abbot added firmly, ‘before he goes.’

It was not quite noon when Brother Adam and John of Grockleton, accompanied by one lay brother, rode slowly out of the abbey and up the track that led to Beaulieu Heath.

As he rode, Adam noticed the small trees that crowned the slope opposite the abbey. The salt sea breeze from the south-west had not bent them, but shaped the tops so that they all looked as if they had been shaved down that side; and they flowered towards the north-east. It was a common sight in the coastal parts of the Forest.

White clouds were scudding over the tranquil, sunlit abbey behind them and, as they crested the little ridge, Adam felt the sharp salt breeze full upon his face.

Brother Luke returned quietly to St Leonards Grange a week later. His case did not come up before the justice at the Michaelmas court.

At about the time of the court, Mary told her husband that he might be going to be a father again.

‘Oh.’ He frowned, then grinned, a little puzzled. ‘That was a lucky one.’

‘I know.’ She shrugged. ‘These things happen.’

He might have thought about it more, except that, a short time later, John Pride – who had suffered two hours of his brother Luke’s urging – turned up to suggest that their quarrel should be over. With him he brought the pony.

1300

On a December afternoon, when a yellow wintry sun, low on the horizon, was sending its parting rays across the frozen landscape of Beaulieu Heath, which was covered in snow, two riders, muffled against the cold, made their way slowly eastwards towards the abbey.

The snow had fallen days before; and right across the heath, now, there was a thin layer of icy crust, which broke as the horses’ hoofs stepped on it. A light, chill breeze came from the east, sweeping little particles of snow and ice dust across the surface. The branches of the snow-covered bushes cast long shadows, fingering eastwards towards Beaulieu.

Five years had passed since Brother Adam had left the abbey to go down to the bleak little daughter house of Newenham, so far along the western coast – five years with only a dozen other brothers in the little wilderness. It might have seemed a cheerless scene that greeted him now, this icy landscape lit by the sulphurous yellow glow of a falling winter sun, but he was not aware of it. He was only aware, as if by a homing instinct, that the grey buildings by the river lay less than an hour away.

It is a curious fact, never fully explained, that at around this time in history a number of the monks belonging to the little house of Newenham in Devon started suffering from a particular affliction. The abbey records of Beaulieu make this very clear, but whether it was the water, the diet, something in the earth or the buildings themselves, nobody has ever been able to discover. Several, however, suffered so acutely that there was nothing to do for them but bring them back to Beaulieu where they could be looked after.

This was what had happened to Brother Adam. He was unaware of the yellowish light around him because he was blind.

It was often remarked with wonder by the monks of Beaulieu, from that time on, how Brother Adam could find his way about unaided. Not only in the cloister. Even in the middle of the night, when the monks came down the passageway and the stairs to perform the night office in the church, he would walk down with them quite unaided and turn into his choir stall at exactly the right place. Outside, too, he would pace about in the abbey precincts without, it seemed, ever getting lost.

He seemed to find all manner of tasks he could perform without the use of his eyes, from planting vegetables to making candles.

He was still a handsome, well-made man. He conversed little and liked to be alone, but there was always about him an air of quiet serenity.

Only once, for a matter of a few days some eighteen months after his return, did something occur within him that seemed to distract his mind. Several times he became lost, or bumped into things. After a week, during which the abbot was rather worried about him, he seemed to recover his equanimity and balance, and never bumped into anything again. No one knew why this brief interlude had occurred. Except Brother Luke.

It had been a warm summer afternoon when the lay brother had offered to escort him along his favourite path down along the river.

‘I shall not see the river, but I shall smell it,’ Adam had replied. ‘By all means, then.’

It had been necessary, in this instance, for Luke to take his arm, but with an occasional warning about any small obstacles along the path, they had been able to stride along quite easily through the woods, emerging finally on to the open marsh by the river bend where, to his delight, the monk had heard the sound of a party of swans, rising off the water on the wing.

And they had been standing in the afternoon silence for a little while, feeling the sun on their faces very pleasantly, when Brother Adam heard light footsteps on the path. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked Luke.

‘Someone to see you,’ the lay brother replied. ‘I’m walking off a little way now,’ he added. And it was with a slight shock of surprise, a moment or two later, that Adam realized who it must be.

She was standing in front of him. He could smell her. He was, as only the blind can be, aware of her whole presence. He wanted to reach out to touch her, but hesitated. It seemed to him that she was not alone.

‘Brother Adam.’ Her voice. She spoke calmly, softly. ‘I have brought someone to see you.’

‘Oh. Who is that?’

‘My youngest child. A little boy.’

‘I see.’

‘Will you give him your blessing?’

‘My blessing?’ He was almost surprised. It was a natural thing to ask of a monk, but, knowing what she did about him … ‘For what my blessing is worth,’ he said. ‘How old is the boy?’

‘He is five.’

‘Ah. A nice age.’ He smiled. ‘His name?’

‘I called him Adam.’

‘Oh. My name.’

He felt her move very close, her body almost touching, but so that she could whisper, close in his ear. ‘He is your son.’

‘My son?’ The revelation hit him so that he almost staggered back. It was as if, in his world of darkness, there had been a great flash of golden light.

‘He doesn’t know.’

‘You …’ His voice was hoarse. ‘You are sure?’

‘Yes.’ She was standing back now.

For a moment he stood there in the sunlight, quite still, though he felt as if he might be swaying. ‘Come, little Adam,’ he said quietly. And when the small boy approached, he reached down with his hands and felt his head, then his face. He would have liked to lift him, feel him, press him to him. But he could not do this. ‘So, Adam,’ he said gently, ‘be a good boy, do as your mother tells you and accept another Adam’s blessing.’ Resting his hand on the boy’s head, he recited a brief prayer.

He wanted so much to give the boy something. He wondered what. Then, suddenly remembering, he drew out the cedarwood crucifix that, so long ago, his mother had given him and, with a single pull, broke the leather string that secured it round his neck and handed it to the boy. ‘My mother gave me this, Adam,’ he said. ‘They say a crusader brought it from the Holy Land. Keep it always.’ He turned to Mary with a shrug. ‘It is all that I have.’

They went, then, and soon afterwards he and Luke made their way back towards the abbey.

They did not speak, except once, halfway along the path through the woods.

‘Does the boy look like me?’

‘Yes.’

Of all the times, during the long years of his blind existence, it was on those sunny afternoons as he sat quietly meditating in the carrels in the sheltered north wall of the abbey cloister, that Brother Adam appeared most serene. It seemed to the younger monks that, being obviously very close to God, Brother Adam was in a silent communion that it would be impious to interrupt. And sometimes he was. But sometimes, also, as he smelled the grass and the daisies in the cloister, and felt the warm sun coming from over the
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, it was another thought that filled his mind with a joy and delight which, if it led him down even to perdition, he could not help.

I have a son. Dear God, I have a son.