The Oblate's Confession (26 page)

I didn’t think she need come to me at all, but I didn’t run when she began to work her way out from under the bush. There was something about the way she had hidden her teeth as she spoke that made me less afraid of her. I didn’t think a witch would be so courteous.

Or so quick. Once she was out in the open, the woman moved with surprising alacrity, walking toward me boldly, hands outstretched as if she intended to take hold of me, maybe do me some harm.

I took a step backward.

The woman stopped, cocked her head, regarded me suspiciously. I was surprised by her size. I knew older monks tended to be smaller than young ones, but the characteristic was apparently more pronounced in women. Finding myself even moderately taller than a grownup was a new experience for me; it restored some of my confidence.

“I have a daughter who is nearly as big as you.” The woman’s face grew serious. “She is dying.”

I tried to look appropriately mournful.

“The men won’t help me and I have no one else to turn to.”

I nodded. Life was full of woe.

The face softened and again she brought her fingers to her mouth. “Will you help me?”

I drew back a step. Will
I
help you?

“No, it’s all right.” The wrinkles deepened now with concern. “I need your help.”

I glanced back at the trees. She didn’t need my help, she needed someone else’s help.
I
needed someone else’s help.

“No, they can’t help.”

I looked back at the woman. They can’t help?
Monks
can’t
help!

Again the smile; this time I thought it was meant to be reassuring. “I need
your
help. I need...I need a boy.”

A boy...?

“Yes, that’s it, a boy.
He
was a boy wasn’t he, the holy one?”

So that was what she was after, though I still didn’t see why she needed me. The monks administered the stuff all the time. Father Eadric even had a special bag for it he carried when he went to visit the sick.

The woman could tell I doubted her. “A boy is better,” she said, “more potent. He still has his whole life inside him.”

To this I could give no response. I had no idea what she was talking about.

The woman stared at me. Realizing she must not find such behavior discourteous, I stared back. It was the hair that really bothered me. The face was not unlike that of some of the older monks. It was smaller, true, and there were dark spots sunk in it like bits of coal, but, otherwise, it was not that different from
Brother Alhred’s. The hair though was another matter. Dark, streaked with white, it hung about her head in lank dirty-looking cords that both repelled and fascinated me. I wondered what it would feel like, such a great amount of hair, if its weight bowed her down, if that perhaps explained her height. The string of beads that hung across her chest was old and gap-toothed. I wondered who had given her that, who the brooches from which it was suspended. Why hadn’t he helped her?

While I thought about these things a change came over the woman. One finger began to kick at a thumb. A strand of hair was played with, rejected, played with again. I was too young to understand the effect our silence can have on people, but I couldn’t help noticing the unrestrained behavior. It made me nervous. I wanted to get away, back to the fields, back where I belonged, but I had no idea how to go about it. Having reached this point in a conversation, how did one turn and walk away without appearing impolite? I had no idea how to say no to an adult and, in my whole life,

I had never once turned my back on one. And besides, the woman
was, in a sense, a guest. I had a duty to the abbey to be hospitable.

The woman leaned to one side, checked the trees behind me, looked at me again. This was bad; she was waiting for me to say something, do something. I had only recently been admitted to Chapter and I didn’t like it, the endless palaver, the sense of options, choices, the possibility of dissent, all made me uncomfortable sitting down at the end of the bench where I was expected to remain quiet and still. And now here I was party to such a discussion. I looked around. There was no help. I said a prayer; there was no reply. Finally, forced by my own indecisiveness to be decisive, I did the one thing I knew would—however momentarily—make everyone happy: I thrust out my arms and, trying to look like Father Prior when he did it, showed her the palms of my hands.

As if granting
my
request, the woman repeated the gesture. “What’s
that
supposed to mean?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “It means yes, I will help you.” My voice didn’t sound at all like the voice of someone taller than the person he
was speaking to.

The woman nodded as though my acceptance had been taken for granted. “Take this,” she said, pulling a small pouch from her girdle, “and put some of the holy one’s....” She paused, looked at me in a way that reminded me of Brother Baldwin.
“Fill it”
she demanded, head cocked forward as if looking down at me. “Fill it with the holy one’s earth and then leave the pouch under this bush. I’ll come for it when I can.”

For some reason I felt a sudden urge to be difficult. “I may not be able to do it right away.”

The woman brightened as if she found my uncertainty pleasing. “That’s all right. I’ll check each day. You put it there and I’ll find it.” Behind her hand I could tell she was smiling. She didn’t really look anything at all like Brother Alhred. Even as old as she was she looked, in a way, pretty.

I took the pouch, shoved it up a sleeve, bowed, turned and strode manfully toward the trees, suddenly feeling very good about myself, certain I was doing the right thing.

“Don’t forget your water.”

My cheeks burned.

I didn’t look at the woman. I turned and walked back down to the river. I picked up my yoke—which suddenly seemed larger than I remembered—and, trying to look natural, trying to look as if I did this every day, placed a bucket loop over each of its ends. Then, as gracefully as I could, I shouldered my load.

Of course the bucket that was full immediately counterbalanced that which was not and it was only with a great deal of difficulty that I kept the whole arrangement from cartwheeling off my back.

The woman made a noise behind her hand.

Again my cheeks burned.

I did not say anything. Carefully, I lowered the full bucket to the ground and, in turn, its lighter mate. I unhooked the half-empty bucket. Still not looking at the woman, I knelt by the river and placed the bucket in the water, for the first time noticing how my backsides rose into the air when I did this. The bucket sat there. It did not sink. I smacked at it and the thing rocked back and forth mockingly. I took hold of it with both hands and forced it under, enjoying the rush of cold clear water down its unprotesting throat. Behind me, a rustling sound, the woman had started to walk off downriver. All joy left me. I wanted to say something, do something, to make this all seem better, end better, but what did I know of the rules of parting? All I could do was stare at my stupid bucket sitting on the bottom of this stupid stream.

The rustling sounds stopped.

I didn’t do anything. I didn’t look up to see if she was coming back. I didn’t say anything. I waited.

The voice, when it came, wasn’t soft or delicate, sweet or appreciative. It was a harsh voice, forced, a whisper meant to carry some distance. “I will thank your God for this!” it said.

Still I didn’t move or look around. I knelt where I was and listened to the sounds the woman made as, once more, she began to work her way down the riverbank. When I could hear her no longer, I looked up and—though I had expected it—I was still a
little disappointed to see how quickly she had disappeared. I waited a short while, and then I went over to the place where we had stood. The woman had small feet, flat like Brother Botulf’s. Where a track had registered clearly, the toes looked like little beads pressed neatly into the mud.

Of course I knew that what I had done was wrong. Then as now the rules of contact were not always explained to oblates, but still I knew it was wrong. From the moment I first realized it was a woman, I had known I should get away from there, turn and run as fast as my legs would carry me. But I did not. Looking back on it now I find myself thinking about Ceolwulf, about his visit and the effect it must have had on me. Had his commission so undermined my natural loyalties that a second transgression now seemed minor by comparison? Are fathers even more powerful than we think? Did mine wittingly plant the seed that led eventually (inevitably?) to my estrangement from Redestone? Who knows? A part of me doubts the man capable of such guile, and yet.... And yet I did not tell Father Prior about the woman. Not even in confession. I knew I should. I worried over it, prayed over it, lost sleep. But I think not much sleep. After all this was no longer the first thing I had kept from him. How easy the second betrayal after the first. And how easy the excuses we make for ourselves. I told myself I was doing a good deed. I told myself the girl was sick, she needed my help. I told myself the Christ Himself would approve.

Still, there were doubts. The woman had explained her request by saying the men of the village wouldn’t help her. Why wouldn’t they help her? Was there something wrong with the woman? How bad must a woman be before she can no longer rely on the men of her village?

And how about Father Eadric? Now that Cuthwine was dead, he was supposed to be responsible for the village. How come he hadn’t helped her? Or asked for prayers for her daughter for that matter? No mention had been made in Chapter of anyone being
sick, and certainly not a girl. I would have remembered if there’d been talk of a girl.

Which led to a new and even more frightening possibility. What if the woman was not of our village? That she could be from elsewhere would never have crossed my mind had it not explained so much. Of course the men of our village hadn’t helped her: she was a stranger. Of course Father Eadric hadn’t mentioned her in Chapter: he probably didn’t even know she existed. And, finally, that most vexing of problems.... Of course her parting words had been “I will praise your God for this!”—qualifying the phrase thus for the simple reason that (and the thought sent chills down my spine)
my
God was not necessarily hers.

But against these concerns I continued to hold up the image of a little girl on her sickbed. Her mother had told her about me, had sat by her side, fanning her, feeding her a little soup and telling her stories of the boy she had met by the river, the little monk who was going to save her, who had promised—
promised
—he would deliver her. That little girl was waiting for me. She lay on her bed as once I had lain on mine, too ill to get up, too ill to do anything other than count roof beams, try to remember what it was like to be happy, healthy, able to run and play. I had no choice. I had to do it.

As it happened, the next night was the new moon. As if planning to keep the long watch, I hung back after the Vigil, and then—once those monks that remained with me had become engrossed in their prayers—I slipped out of the church and into the cool air of the garth. There wasn’t much to direct one to the pit in those days—no wall, no dressed stone, none of the sad little offerings left by pilgrims. Father Abbot had ordered a covering of thatch (which had seen previous service on a hayrick), but aside from that there was nothing to mark the spot as exceptional or different from any other on the garth. I can still remember the shock I received when I removed that covering, the breath of warm air that rose to greet me, the scent of raw earth, recent excavation. Of course I knew what this was, that the thatch had captured and retained some of the heat of the day, that it was this and only this
that exhaled upon me—but, still, I did not care for the sensation.

It was Brother Baldwin that had seen to it I witnessed the washing. At the time I had still been too weak to walk on my own, so he and Tatwine had linked arms and carried me to the door. Of course they didn’t bother to explain why they were doing this, where they were taking me, and so it had come as something of a relief to see the body lying there on the garth, the vessels set out on the turf around it: clearly some familiar if taxing rite was about to take place, clearly nothing else was going to happen, this wasn’t what I had feared it was, Baldwin and Tatwine weren’t delivering me to some final awful reckoning.