Blood Moon (5 page)

‘Kneel brother if you please, and remove your robe.’
He signalled to the subprior to hand him the rods.

Still confused and in a state of shock, I obeyed pulling my habit over my head so that I was dressed now only in my shift and braies. I thanked God it was not summer or I might well be completely naked before my fellows. I knew what
I was supposed to do next: Confess the sin for which I was indicted. But confess to what?

‘Brother Prior,’ I
announced at last. ‘I do freely confess that I am a woeful sinner and humbly beg forgiveness,’ and then added quietly, ‘if you could just remind me what exactly it is I have done?’

Herbert exploded with fury. He swished the rods through the air several times to flex his wrist thus making a pleasant, if unnerving, whistling sound as they passed my ear.

‘Brother, you compound one transgression with another,’ spat Herbert. ‘You know your sin. Contrition should be your watchword now.
Contrition
.’

‘Oh I am contrite, brother,’ I agreed. ‘
Erm - perhaps if I knew the name of my accuser I might better repent the sin?’

‘
I
accuse you, brother,’ he growled.

‘For speaking out loud?’

Herbert snorted with contempt. ‘No, not for speaking out loud, brother. For consorting with a woman, the Lady Adelle de Gray.’

His voice rose as he spoke these last words eliciting a few genuine gasps of horror from my brother monks. Put like that I suppose it did sound shocking. It is absolutely the worst crime in the calendar for a monk to have any dealings with a woman within the bounds of the abbey. In this case there were mitigating circumstances which given the chance I might have been able to explain. But it didn’
t look as though I was going to get the chance.

‘Do you deny it brother? Before you answer I warn you, there is a witness.’

A witness? Ah yes: Brother Gregor. No doubt he would have gone straight to Herbert with the news.

‘I don’t deny that I visited the lady,’ I began awkwardly, ‘but -’

‘You hear that, brothers? Brother Walter does not deny visiting the woman alone in her bedchamber while her husband was absent,’ interrupted Herbert.

More murmurings of disapproval. Herbert was clearly savouring every moment. I couldn’t help thinking he had been looking for a reason to do this ever since he lost his battle with my mother.
This was his way of paying her back. Well, he was about to have satisfaction at last. The “crime” having been admitted, he raised the bundle of canes high above my shoulders and I braced myself for the blow. But before he could bring them down again there came a commotion from the opposite side of the chamber. A cry of anguish rang out with brothers rushing from their seats. We all turned to look and we saw that at the centre of the upheaval was Brother Eusebius.

In the confusion that followed I remained on my knees while Herbert jiggled his collection of canes
impatiently not knowing what to do. But the focus had already shifted from him to the side where a crowd of monks had surrounded Eusebius. Even from my kneeling position I could see that blood was pouring from the young man’s face. Being the only medic present it was clearly my place to deal with the situation. But equally clearly as a penitent about to be punished I could do nothing without permission of the prior. Several of my brother monks pleaded with Herbert to release me so that I could attend to the patient. Herbert looked on the verge of apoplexy. Finally he conceded defeat. He made a rapid sign of the cross:

‘
Brother Walter, consider yourself absolved – this time. Oh, do what you can for the boy.’

So saying, he stormed out of the chapterhouse hurling from him the bundle of rods that clattered harmlessly against the wall.

Chapter 5

BROTHER
EUSEBIUS

‘How
are you feeling now, my son?’

‘Still a little light-headed, master.’

I chuckled. ‘Hardly surprising since it is from your head that the blood escaped. Half its weight is now lying on the floor of the chapterhouse!’

Eusebius looked alarmed.

‘I jest, brother,’ I reassured him. ‘Where blood is concerned a little goes a long way. Come, lie down and raise your feet. We will soon put the colour back into your cheeks.’

We were in my laboratorium where I’d taken Eusebius to recover. If I thought he looked pallid before the nosebleed, he looked almost ghostlike now. But I was confident that with a little rest he’d be fine.
Nosebleeds are a not an uncommon event in religious houses. They are particularly frequent among younger men new to a life of austerity. The sudden change in diet in particular disrupts the balance of the body’s humours resulting in a build-up of surplus blood which is then expelled through the most convenient orifice – in this case, the nose. When this happens, the initial treatment is to sit the patient down and place something cold and dry on the forehead – something like the large iron key which is what I had used on the boy in the chapterhouse. This temporarily cools the hot and moist blood thus stemming the flow. But it is only a temporary solution. The excess blood would have to be siphoned off later using either leaches or a drain in the arm. But it is a simple enough procedure with no lasting ill effects.

I began preparing a warm suffusion of burdock and figwort in lime juice for
Eusebius to drink.

‘Have you had emissions like this before?’ I asked him.

‘I’ve always had them ever since I’ve been with the Gilbertines.’

‘And how long is that?’

‘Since I was oblated at the age of ten. Why do you ask, master?’

I smiled. ‘Oh, it’s just my questions. A doctor has to ask these things.’

In fact the boy’s answers confirmed my suspicions. By his own admission he was not new to the Gilbertine order but had been with them for I calculated to be at least ten years – more than enough time to adapt to the regimen, I would have thought. No, something more fundamental was amiss here. I would need to study his birth chart to be certain of my diagnosis, but in my experience those most susceptible to frequent nosebleeds are by definition of a sanguine nature and are usually outgoing, sociable and rather jolly people often given to corpulence. Eusebius, by contrast, struck me as being melancholic, introspective and painfully thin. This mismatch of humour and type was worrying.

It could, of course, simply be a lack of nourishing food that was the cause. The Gilbertines are few in number and known to be very poor -
I believe there was even a revolt a while back among the Gilbertine lay brothers against their poor food. But if I had to guess I’d say in Eusebius’s case the source of the problem lay much deeper and be of a spiritual rather than physical nature. That would explain his presence here. Something of the sort must be the case else why was he here at all? Whatever his problem, however, I wanted to do my best for the boy grateful as I was for his having saved me from my own ordeal at the hands of Prior Herbert, for had he not cried out when he did it might be me now lying on the couch nursing something rather more painful than a mild headache.

‘Here,
drink this,’ I said, handing him the suffusion of burdock and figwort. ‘It will revive you.’

He
sipped it and pulled a face. ‘Urgh! Sour.’

‘Nevertheless you should persevere,’ I insisted sternly, but then softened my tone. ‘I’ll ease its passage with a little honey in deference to your youth. I know the young like sweet things.’

I watched while he drained the cup.

‘Have we met before?’ I asked as he handed it back. ‘Your features seem somehow familiar to me.’

‘Not unless you have been to our priory at Shouldham. This is my first time away.’

‘No, I have never been to a Gilbertine house. I think I would have remembered if I had.’

‘You disapprove?’ he asked hesitantly.

‘Of monks and nuns cohabiting together?’ I shook my head. ‘I confess I find the concept strange, but I would be loathe to condemn that which I do not fully understand.’

‘It is not difficult once you try it – men and women living and praying together in modesty as God ordained Adam and Eve before the Fall. It is not a new concept.’

‘But one that must cause…difficulties,’ I suggested gently
.

H
e looked at me shyly. ‘You fear the carnal desire, master. But if you live in the love and devotion of the Lord Jesus Christ and his Holy Mother the Virgin Mary then all earthly temptation is conquered.’

‘
Noble sentiments,’ I conceded. ‘Perhaps the faith of Gilbertines is stronger than ours. We Benedictines prefer the certainty of geography and locked doors to ensure our chastity.’

‘Oh, we have locks too,’ he insisted. ‘And walls to keep us apart - even inside the priory church itself. The nuns and the canons can hear each other, but not see. We have separate dormitories, separate refectories, even separate cloisters. There is no contact between us at all - other than for spiritual purposes.’

I shrugged. ‘Then I fail to see the point. Why not go the whole hog and separate totally into different houses?’

He frowned trying to explain: ‘It is a matter of historical precedent. The first Gilbertines were nuns. But since nuns cannot celebrate the mass or hear confession a community of
canons was added to serve them. Then a community of lay sisters was added to serve the needs of the nuns and finally another of lay brothers to do the heavier work.’

‘Goodness me!’ I chuckled. ‘Not
two
houses but
four
.’

He lowered his eyes. ‘You mock us, master.’

I shook my head. ‘Not at all. But you have to admit, it does sound a little…complicated.’

‘Not if the rules are obeyed
. If correctly followed the arrangements work well enough. Although…’

‘Although?’

He stiffened a little. ‘No doubt you have heard the tales.’

I had indeed. I didn’t like to mention it, but as is so often the case with even our noblest of intentions, human behaviour has a habit of tripping us up. There was one particular case I knew o
f a Gilbertine nun who was seduced by one of their lay brothers. When the other nuns found out they forced the girl to castrate the brother concerned and to consume the severed parts - or so the story had it. The disgraced nun was then locked away to bear her shame alone. But all was made well in the end for during her lonely sojourn in the dungeon cell the nun had a miraculous visitation from the Archbishop of York, no less, who spirited away both her chains and her unborn child thus saving the girl from everlasting damnation - and Holy Mother Church from everlasting disgrace, of course. I am not saying such things never happen among Benedictines, but the opportunity must be all the greater with so many men and women living together cheek by jowl.

‘We are none of us perfect,’ Eusebius was saying shyly. ‘We are all tempted at times.’ He looked up. ‘Even you, master.’

‘Me?’ I was stunned by the sudden personal reference. ‘Oh well - when I was your age, perhaps. I’m not sure I have such feelings anymore. Not for a while at any rate.’

‘But did I not hear the prior correctly,’ Eusebius
persisted, ‘that you visited a lady privately in her bedchamber? Isn’t that why you were being disciplined in the chapterhouse this morning?’

I grimaced. ‘I’m afraid Prior Herbert’s imagination sometimes runs away with him. It is true that I paid a visit to the lady concerned, but in my capacity as her doctor. She has just given birth to a baby daughter which I delivered. It was concern for her health and that of her child that attracted my interest, not her feminine charms.’

He went quiet. ‘Did I hear correctly that the lady in question was Lady Adelle de Gray?’

‘You’ve heard of
her?’ I asked suspiciously.

‘I know the name. Bishop de Gray is our bishop.’

Of course, that would be it. Shouldham was in the diocese of Norfolk - Bishop de Gray’s diocese.

‘You would agree, though,’ said Eusebius, ‘that it is the animation of carnal lust which damns us?’

‘Erm – well yes, I suppose so,’ I agreed somewhat reluctantly as I rinsed out his bowl.

He nodded. ‘Guiges of Chartreuse says that it is not possible for a man to hide a fire in his breast or touch pitch without getting stuck. And Gerald of Wales advises that if we are tempted by the desires of the flesh we should visualize coupling with a corpse, for what can be more disgusting than stinking, rotting flesh?’

I laughed awkwardly at his extreme imagery. It was clear the boy was both well-read and deeply serious. His devotion to the Virgin was also commendable if a little severe in one so young. I thought I was beginning to understand why Eusebius had been sent to us.

‘I find a dip in the cold waters of the Lark has the same effect,’ I said trying to lighten his mood.

But the boy was not to be deterred so easily. ‘No, master. Abstinence is the only safe way. The Holy Mother showed us by her example, the only truly virgin in thought as well as in deed. Only by following her supreme example can we achieve full redemption. Her chastity is the light and the purity, whiter than snow, clearer than glass, more brilliant than the sun!’

Well, that certainly brought
the colour back to his cheeks. His eyes were bright with adoration. I could only hope that a few weeks with us might calm him - perhaps by mixing with some of the other young men in the novice house would bring him back down to earth. But I seemed to have discovered what was ailing my new young friend and what had brought him to seek solace at the foot of Saint Edmund’s tomb: Terror of his own humanity.