The Abbot's Agreement by Mel Starr

Author:Mel Starr [Starr, Mel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Christian, Historical
ISBN: 9781782641094
Google: 0nNAngEACAAJ
Publisher: Lion Hudson PLC
Published: 2014-08-21T18:30:00+00:00

The skin of the dormer window glowed faintly when I awoke, and provided enough light that I could inspect my surroundings. The attic was mostly bare. I saw an unlit cresset, and a chamber pot which Brother Gerleys had thoughtfully provided and then forgotten to mention. And there was the pallet.

I lay awake, watching the small enclosure grow brighter, and soon heard voices below me. The novices had awakened. Although monks do not break their fast, novices in Benedictine houses are permitted a loaf, and as I lay listening, trying to hear the youthful conversation, I heard their chamber door open.

I thought it likely that a lay brother assigned to the kitchen had brought loaves, but not so. The sound of latch and squeaking hinges was followed by excited voices, one of which I readily identified. ’Twas Prior Philip.

The prior was so overwrought that I could at first make nothing of his outburst. But I knew what it must portend.

“Gone!” the prior seethed. “Cell door closed, door barred. Only a devil could escape. A heretic in league with the devil.

“All know you were his friend,” Prior Philip continued, speaking, I assumed, to Brother Gerleys, who must have accompanied him to the novices’ chamber. “Has he come to you to flee the bishop’s justice?”

“Master Hugh? Here? Look about you. Where could he be? There is a small chest against yon wall, but surely too small to hide a man. Where else in the chamber might he be? You and the archdeacon’s men may search where you will.”

“You’ve not seen the fellow this night, then?”

“Nay. If he escaped the infirmarer’s cell you’ll not find him here.”

I heard Prior Philip snort in disgust. “If you see him, or learn of where he might be, tell me straightaway.”

The chamber door slammed shut, then but a few heartbeats later opened again. Another conversation, more muted, followed. The novices’ loaves had arrived. Silence followed while the novices ate, then I heard Brother Gerleys assign tasks for the day. Henry was to attend the monks in the scriptorium, making ink, lining parchments, and perhaps trying his hand at copying some insignificant manuscript. Osbert was to seek the kitchener, a pleasant duty on such a chill day, to stir a pot over a fire or do some other menial chore to help prepare the monks’ dinner.

Shortly after the novices set off for their work I heard the ladder scrape against the stone wall below my feet. Where, I wondered, had the novice-master hidden the thing, that it was not visible to Prior Philip, yet so ready to hand when needed?

I watched the trap door and saw it rise. I assisted Brother Gerleys in lifting it and shoved it aside. His face appeared in the opening.

“Come down,” he said. “I’ve saved back a part of a loaf for you.”

The ladder did not reach to the ceiling. It was barely as long as I am tall, so descending from the attic meant hanging from the planks upon one’s elbows and feeling about with a toe for the top rung of the ladder.

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