Brother's Blood by C.B. Hanley

Author:C.B. Hanley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750968928
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2016-04-02T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Edwin settled himself into a corner of the cloister as he watched the monks prepare for their morning reading. Each one queued at the armarium and was issued his book, and then found himself a spot on one of the benches around the edge of the cloister or those placed on the open grassed area in the middle. That would be a fine place to read today, thought Edwin, but surely they can’t sit there if it looks like rain or the books would be ruined. I wonder what the weather was like on the day Brother Alexander died – I don’t think it was wet but I must remember to check. One of them will know.

The monks were by now all seated individually, each with his book and each with his cowl up, covering his head. To give them more privacy and help them to concentrate, Edwin thought, though it made them even more indistinguishable from each other than they were normally. Each of them was reading aloud to himself, but quietly so as not to disturb the others, so the whole cloister was filled with the sound of murmuring as the monks ran their fingers along the text of the page in front of them. Every so often one of them would stop reading and fold his hands – contemplating something he had learned, no doubt.

After what Edwin judged was about half of the allotted time for lectio divina he leaned over towards Martin, who had been sitting next to him unmoving all the while and clearly bored out of his mind. He whispered as quietly as he could. ‘Notice anything?’

Martin shrugged and replied in an equally low voice. ‘Nothing except that they’re all reading and I can’t tell who is who.’

‘Agreed.’ But Edwin had also noticed something else, and now he cupped his hand to Martin’s ear. ‘See that door over there? The one that leads through the lay brothers’ building and out into the precinct?’

Martin nodded.

‘Can you walk over there, go through the door so I can’t see you, and then walk back here as quietly and calmly as you can? I want to try something.’

Martin nodded again and rose. He sauntered around the walkway at the edge of the cloister until he reached the door, and then disappeared through it. Then he reappeared and strolled back, walking this time across the grassed area. As Edwin expected, none of the monks really paused in their reading and studying, but a number of them looked up at Martin curiously before lowering their gaze to their books once more.

Martin took his seat again. ‘And?’

Edwin leaned in. ‘I’ll tell you later, but I think it’s important.’

Once the lectio divina was over, each of the brothers closed his book with care and then queued in silence to hand it back to Brother Octavian before heading towards the refectory. The librarian took each volume one at a time, placing it precisely back in the armarium before coming back for the next, so the whole exercise was going to take some time.

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