Pagan's Vows (18 page)

Waiting until he’s slipped out the door.

Quick! Get up! Get after him! Can I make it without my boots? Perhaps not. Yanking them on with fumbling fingers; holding my breath on the way past Clement’s snores. It’s as cold as the devil’s heart, outside, and black as the smoke of sin, but I can hear Roland’s shuffling footsteps along the path to the refectory. They begin to sound hollow as he turns into the covered passage. Quick, quick! Don’t let him escape!

‘Roland.’

It’s just a little squeak, from the back of my throat, but he hears me. The footsteps come to a halt.

‘It’s me, Pagan!’

Still not a sound. Feeling my way along the wall of the monks’ dormitory, until it suddenly disappears. (Must have reached the corner.) Groping through space with one outstretched hand, in search of something warm and soft. Where are you, Roland? Where are you hiding? You’ve got to be in here – I heard you a moment ago.

Yike!

‘Shh!’ It’s his voice; his hands. Almost scared me to death. ‘What are you doing?’ he whispers.

‘What are
you
doing?’

‘I’m going to the church. To pray.’

‘At this hour?’

‘Go back to bed, Pagan.’

‘No.’

‘Pagan –’

‘We have to talk. It’s time we had a talk.’

‘We can talk tomorrow.’

‘No we can’t! How can we, when we never have a moment to ourselves?’

‘But the circator –’

‘Oh, I see. So you’re scared of the big bad circator, are you?’

A long silence. That’s done it. I can hear his heavy breathing, as his grip tightens on my arm.

‘Very well,’ he says, ‘but we can’t stay here.’

‘I know that. Just follow me.’

We’ll be safe outside the herb garden: all we have to do is get to that door opposite the stables. Taking his hand (which is ice-cold) and dragging him back towards our dormitory, step by step, until the rough stone wall yields to smooth wood. Must be the door to the oblates’ room. And here’s our room, and if we keep to this path we’ll be there before you know it.

Aha! What did I tell you? More wood, roughened by the weather. A cold, metal stud. A rattling bar.

‘Help me with this, will you?’ Softly, over my shoulder. ‘It’s barred on the inside.’

He gropes his way past me; finds what he’s looking for. There’s a scraping sound as he lifts the heavy, oaken beam.

‘I think I’ll hold onto this,’ he whispers. ‘If I don’t, we’ll never find it again. You go first. Be careful.’

Oh I’ll be careful, Roland, don’t you worry. Fumbling around in the darkness; finding the door; pulling it open. The cold wind hits me as I squeeze through the gap. Ouch! My head!

‘Sorry,’ he murmurs. (Must have hit me with the beam.) ‘Where are you? Pagan?’

‘I’m here. Down here.’

‘Move over.’

Shuffling to one side, obediently. Feeling the cold biting into my ankles. But his warm bulk slides down the wall, and now he’s beside me, blowing on his hands. Crouching there in silence.

Waiting for me to start.

‘What’s wrong with you, my lord?’

‘Don’t call me that.’

‘What’s wrong with you, Roland?’

‘There’s nothing wrong.’

‘Oh really? You don’t eat, you don’t speak, you wander around at night like a cockroach –’

‘I told you, I was going to the church –’

‘To pray? What for? An appetite?’

No response.

‘You’re fading away, Roland. You’re fading away in front of my eyes, and you tell me there’s nothing wrong!’

‘I’m fasting.’

‘You’re
what
?’

‘Shh! Not so loud.’

‘But it’s not Lent! Why should you be fasting?’

‘I’m fasting in penance.’

Sweet saints preserve us. In penance? I’ve never heard such rubbish. ‘Penance for what?’

‘For my sins.’

Your
what
? Oh, please, this is ludicrous. You wouldn’t know a sin if it came up and wiped its nose all over your scapular. ‘And what sins would these be?’

Silence.

‘You’d better tell me, Roland.’

Still nothing. God damn you, Roland. God damn you for your stupid, stuck-up, solitary, stiff-necked pride.

‘If you don’t tell me . . .’ (Trying to keep my voice steady.) ‘If you don’t tell me, right now, I’m going to walk out of this place and I’m never coming back.’

‘Pagan –’

‘Do you think I’m going to sit here and watch you starve yourself to death? Watch you shrivel away to nothing?’

‘You don’t understand –’

‘
Why are you doing this
?’

‘Because I loved a heretic!’ It bursts out of him, like juice out of a grape. But he quickly lowers his voice again. ‘I loved a heretic,’ he repeats. ‘That’s why.’

‘You mean Esclaramonde?’

A slight movement. (A nod?) This is crazy. I don’t understand. ‘But you weren’t even a monk, then!’

‘She was a heretic.’

‘So what? She was still a good woman.’

‘No.’ It comes out as a strangled squawk. ‘No, I . . . No . . .’

‘Roland, this is crazy. Are you crazy? I knew her as well as you did. Of course she was a good woman. If she hadn’t been, you wouldn’t have loved her.’

‘Stop it. Stop it, Pagan, please.’ His words sound muffled, as if he’s talking through his hands. ‘She was a heretic. She – she endangered my immortal soul, and defiled my house with her corruption –’

‘Wait. Hold it right there.’ Now I’ve got it. Now I understand. ‘Who have you been talking to?’

Harsh breathing.

‘Roland? Who have you been talking to? I know you’ve been talking to someone –’

‘Father Guilabert.’

‘
Guilabert
?’

‘You don’t –’

‘That fat sod? That pompous tub of lard! I don’t believe it!’

‘He is our Father Superior –’

‘He is a pile of snot in the shape of a man! He has a brain the size of a pimple! What the hell did you listen to him for? He wouldn’t know his arse from his armpit!’

‘Oh, but
you
are so well informed!
You
can solve everyone’s problems!’ He spits it out in the querulous, high-pitched tones of an angry scullion.

I’ve never heard him talk like this. It’s weird. It’s frightening.

‘This may come as a surprise to you, Pagan, but you’re not the world expert on everything, no matter what you believe!’

‘I didn’t say I was –’

‘You’re not even a monk!’

‘Well neither are you!’

‘I know, I know that. But I’m going to be.’ All of a sudden, he’s quiet again. Subdued. Intense. ‘I’m going to be a monk,’ he whispers, ‘and I’m going to find God. I’m going to find a path. I
must
find a path. It’s my last chance, here.’

‘Roland –’

‘I must, I must, I must!’

And the bells start to ring. Wouldn’t you know it? What terrible timing.

‘Nocturnes!’ Roland hisses.

‘I know. Get up.’

‘What are we –?’

‘You go straight to church. Say you’ve been praying. I’ll go to the latrines, and say I’d had the flux.’

‘But –’

‘Hurry! Quick! Run!’

Christ in a cream cheese sauce. It’s a good job somebody’s still using his head, around here.

Chapter 22

‘S
ilence, novices! Silence please!’

Clement tries to clap his hands, but only manages to produce a weak little noise like the last gasp of a drowning piglet. (His knuckles are so swollen, these days, that he can’t even straighten his fingers properly.)

‘What do you think you’re doing, Bernard?’ he exclaims. ‘It’s your turn to arrange the stools. Fetch the Bible, Raymond. Durand, I’ve told you before: if you’re going to wipe your nose, do it on your sleeve, not on your hand. Hands are for touching books. Pagan – over here.’

Groan. Looks like another private session, for yours truly. Must be something to do with this enormous hulking book he’s making me drag around.

It’s even bigger than Boethius.

‘Sit down, all of you. Whose turn is it to read? Is it yours, Bernard?’

‘No, Master, it’s Amiel’s.’

‘Oh, I see. Well, since Amiel is still sick, we’ll let Gaubert do it. He needs the practice.’

Poor old Gaubert. Look at his face! You’d think he’d been asked to chew a tunnel through a dung-heap.

‘John Chapter Ten, please Gaubert,’ the Toothless Terror continues. ‘And I want you all to listen carefully, because I’ll be asking questions on that chapter when he’s done. Not you, Pagan, I have something else for you to read. Come here.’

Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not thyself from my supplication. Don’t tell me I’m actually going to have to
read
this monster. I think I’d rather be hit over the head with it.

‘This book,’ says Clement, grimacing as he lowers himself onto a stool, ‘is a very wonderful book called
Ad
Herrenium de arte rhetorica.
It was written by Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great orator and philospher, and it concerns the art of rhetoric. Now, what did Boethius say about rhetoric?’

Pause. Oh – sorry. Am I supposed to answer that? I thought it was a rhetorical question.

‘Pagan?’ (He’s starting to get that rasp in his voice.) ‘What did Boethius say –’

‘He said that rhetoric has three species.’

‘Which are?’

‘Judicial, deliberative and . . .’ Um. God, what was the other one? I’ve completely forgotten.

‘
Iudicale
,
deliberativum
, and
demonstrativum.
’

Demonstrativum
! Of course. You took the words right out of my mouth. Over on the other side of the dormitory, 174 Gaubert is stumbling through the verse about the man that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, and it’s kind of distracting.

‘Yes,’ Clement growls, stoically ignoring Gaubert’s crippled pronunciation, ‘those are indeed the three kinds of cases which an orator must undertake. But what are the five things that he must possess? Can you tell me that?’

Of course I can. ‘Invention, arrangement, expression, memorisation, delivery.’

‘Correct.
Inventio
,
dispositio
,
elocutio
,
memoria
,
pronuntiatio.
This book is a profound study of these things, and of the various divisions of speech, and of the elements of style possessed by all great orators. Orators and letter-writers.’ With trembling hands he takes the book from my grasp, and almost drops it. ‘There is also a very interesting section here on rhetorical composition, which is made up of the
salutatio
, the
benevolentiae captatio
, the
narratio
, the
petitio
and the
conclusio.
Yes, Durand, what is it?’

Durand has sidled up like a beaten dog, all pleading eyes and hunched shoulders. A bad cold has turned his little snub nose into something resembling a squashed grape. He stands there, moon-faced and slack-jawed, breathing through an open mouth.

‘Please, Master,’ he snuffles, ‘I want to go to the latrines.’

Clement gives vent to an exasperated sigh. ‘Very well,’ he snarls. ‘But don’t dawdle.’

‘No, Master. Thank you, Master.’

As Durand turns to leave, it suddenly hits me. This could be my chance. Quick, Pagan, cross your legs! Bite your lip! Wriggle around! You have to look convincing.

‘Please, Master, can I go too?’ (Trying to force the sweat through my skin.) ‘I need to go too.’

‘You?’ he snaps. ‘Don’t talk nonsense.’

‘But I need to.’ Whine, whine. ‘I think I’ve got the flux. I can’t concentrate. I’ll soil my drawers –’

‘Oh, all right, go!’ (Hurrah!) ‘But if you’re not back before Gaubert reaches the eighteenth verse, Pagan, I’ll have the skin off your back.’

Skin? What skin. That’s been taken off already. Hurrying after Durand, who’s waddling up the path as fast as his pudgy legs can carry him, sniffing and coughing and wiping his noise. Past the herb garden. Around the corner. Into the covered passage.

‘Durand! Wait!’

He stops, and turns his head. Stuck into his doughy face – with its dribbling nose and double chin and slack bottom lip – is a pair of big, round, rather pensive dark eyes that look a bit incongruous in that face, like the proverbial jewel of gold in the swine’s snout. They’re the sort of eyes that always seem to be hanging about at the edge of things, watching.

He blinks them at me in a startled fashion.

‘What?’ he says.

‘There’s something I have to ask you.’ (Quietly.) ‘Not here, though. Wait until we get to the latrines.’

‘What is it?’

‘I’ll tell you in the latrines.’

The best thing about the latrines in this monastery is that they actually work. Whoever designed the drainage ought to be sanctified: summer or winter, rain or shine, there’s never a nasty pile-up in the sluice. I’ve seen latrines – 176 I’ve even
cleaned
latrines – that would make a leper vomit. But this isn’t one of them.

Of course, the disadvantage of having presentable latrines is that people tend to linger inside them. I’ve heard of one monk, long since dead, who actually used to sit in here and read. Today, however, it’s much too cold to expose anything for long: the only occupant is pulling up his drawers just as we cross the threshold.

‘Dominus vobiscum
,
’
he mutters. In the dimness you can just make out his gleaming scalp; his huge hands; his wet black eyes and pendulous lower lip. It’s Sicard the guest-master.