The Oblate's Confession (6 page)

I don’t really remember the viaticum. Waldhere says I was awake, but I don’t remember it. I do remember the monks. At the end, in my memory, Oftfor floats on a cloud of upturned faces, the entire community come to kneel by his bed. I also remember the light. Of course that’s impossible. Oftfor’s bed lay along the north wall, mine along the south, so I must have dreamt that, imagined that. Still, in my memory, the windows are open and there is a little

light coming through the one over Oftfor’s bed.

For a long time nothing happened; then there was the suggestion of a movement, as if all the monks closest to Oftfor had, in unison, taken a breath of air. Father Prior stood up. He leaned over the bed and, like a man who has dropped a stone to judge the depth of a well, he placed his ear over Oftfor’s mouth and listened. After a moment or two, he pulled back, looked over at Father Abbot, nodded. Father Abbot pursed his lips in that way he had, looked back at Oftfor. The boy’s forehead was smooth now, untroubled, his eyes focused on something distant. Father Prior leaned forward again. He kissed Oftfor and immediately, as if a flock of birds had broken into the hall, the air of the dortoir was filled with the sound of wings. We all looked up but it was too late; Oftfor was gone.

Nowadays everyone knows Oftfor’s story, how he saw heaven and predicted the future. We hear such tales all the time and accept them without thinking about them, though it’s not like that when the story itself takes place. When everyone told me I was going to live, that the little saint had said I would recover, I wanted to believe them. I wanted to believe them very much; but I didn’t. Not in my heart. I knew Oftfor; he was no saint: he was the little boy who slept across from me, the one who liked to play with dead animals, the one who once stole a piece of bread.

But of course I was wrong to think that way. Oftfor
was
a saint, must have been, for we did recover. All those infected but still living at the time of his death regained their strength; however haltingly, we returned to our duties, our lives, the Rule. I can still

remember the first time I was able to get up, go to the reredorter by myself, what it felt like to sit in that place and look out the window, watch a breeze move across the southern slope of Modra nect. At the time even so simple a thing as the way the trees turned and changed in the path of that breeze, going from dark to light and then back to dark again, struck me as remarkable.

We buried a little over half our community that year. All the able-bodied were needed to save what could be saved of the harvest, so we oblates had to help the older monks dig the graves. We didn’t have time to sew up the hoods. We carried the bodies out one by one and buried them on the garth. Their names were:

Oslac, an old man.

Fursa, who had been cellarer under Abbot Folian.

Ælfwine, who sang well.

Hlothberht, who had charge of Redestone’s oxen.

Cuthwine, priest and cellarer.

Cerdic, who had changed his name.

Wihtred, who snored.

Rædwald, who had a special devotion to the Blessed Mother. Guthere, who was lame.

Eadbald, who had charge of Redestone’s kitchens.

Osberht, said to have been among those baptized by St. Pauli nus at the River Glen.

Byrhtnoth, a priest.

Eatta, another priest.

Ceolwulf, who carried my father’s name.

Leofgar, who suffered from earaches.

Ælfhelm, poet and servant to Gwynedd.

Hrothweard, who had a scar.

Wulfred, whose name alone is now recalled.

Wiglaf, who was a Mercian.

Plegmund, whose spear and shield are buried in the abbey or chard.

Eadnoth, who slept in the bed next but one to mine.

Beornred, whom no one knew was ill.

Torhtmund, who was Sigeberht’s brother.

Dudda, who liked pancakes.

Sigeberht, the first to die.

Ceawlin, who had only just entered the monastery.

Oftfor.

I do not know the names of the people who died in the village but there were many. Father Cuthwine watched over them until he too became ill. After that, some probably died without a priest. There were so many dying then and there were not enough priests.

That year, for lack of able-bodied men, most of our crop rotted in the field.

The abbot’s lodge. The name alone signifies. Yet I who saw that building’s construction may now live long enough to see its name, possibly even the building itself, fall into disuse! Should Father Abbot actually follow through with his plans, move permanently into the dortoir with the rest of us, what do you suppose will become of it? Guesthouse, granary, storeroom, shed—it can never be the same. Still, so long as we live, we who remember what a summons thence could mean, memory must lodge there if nothing else...the dark, the cold, the fear, the smell.

The smell.

I knew what that was.

But I didn’t want to think about that.

I hugged myself. It was cold in here, colder than any of the

other buildings. Where Father Abbot came from the Rule didn’t permit fires except for cooking; monks in that land were stronger than us, tougher. Father Abbot probably didn’t even need a fire. Which was why they stored the woolens in here, and the vestments, and, sometimes, a portion of the harvest, because it was cooler in the abbot’s lodge, drier, because things were less liable to rot.

Which made me remember despite myself. I wondered if the smell would persist. Come the haying, when they handed out the fresh woolens, would the brothers remark upon it? Would they remember what had been stored here?

A noise as of teeth being ripped from their sockets and my heart skipped.

It was Father Dagan, hand still holding the curtain aside, eyes wide, questioning.

But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask if he’d frightened me. He looked at me, nodded once, and then, pressing the curtain further aside, the noise insignificant now, a commonplace, he

indicated I should enter.

I stepped through, covered my eyes.

The figure of the abbot stood before an open window, light pouring in around it like cold air.

I knelt down and the floor was hard and cold but I could see better. No one said anything. The abbot’s feet were flat and the spaces between his toes too wide. I wondered if the furnace master (who was from the same country as Father Abbot) had feet this flat, toes spread this wide.

“Do you know why you are here?”

I nodded. Ealhmund had started it, but there was no point in making excuses now.

Father Abbot said something I had trouble understanding for he spoke in the Roman tongue; but, thankfully, Father Prior replied in our own. “Winwæd,” he said, “has no idea why he is here.” You could tell from the way he said it that he was talking to me as much as to Father Abbot.

Father Abbot’s attention returned to me. “You are called
Winwaed,”

He didn’t pronounce it right but I nodded anyway.

“A peculiar name.”

I assumed custody of the eyes.

“Were you there yesterday?”

I nodded. The beggars, he meant the beggars.

“Someday they may not go so easily.”

The beggars had appeared toward the end of winter. At first they’d seemed more spirits than men, hanging about the edge of the wood, shifting in and out among the trees. Then the villagers began to complain of them: a scythe went missing, a basket full of eggs. Yesterday, for the first time, they’d invaded the abbey precincts. By the time we oblates had gotten there most of the excitement was over, but you could still tell what had happened. A dun-colored spray of grain lay fanned out on the ground, one of Botulf’s pits open beside it, broken bits of seal scattered all around. A group of beggars stood by the gate, empty-handed, eyeing the grain. A slightly larger group of monks stood between them and the pit. You couldn’t really hear what the beggars said when they spoke to one another, but you couldn’t miss what they said to the monks. Of course the monks paid them no heed. They were monks. They kept the silence. After a while the beggars simply gave up and went away.

“But of course you know about Ælfhelm.”

I blinked, remembered myself, nodded emphatically.

“You helped with the digging didn’t you?”

Again I nodded, trying to look like someone who’d been paying attention, wondering how Father had gotten onto this subject, wondering if he too was bothered by the smell.

“Well at first we thought they both were dead. When Ælfhelm didn’t come back, it was.... Well it was only natural, wasn’t it, what with so many dying? But Brother Tatwine surprised us.” Father Abbot looked at me. “They brought only the one body down. Father Gwynedd’s still alive.”

I smiled for Father Abbot—who clearly thought I should be pleased with this information—while casting a desperate glance
up at Father Dagan:
Father Gwynedd?

Father Dagan frowned. “Have you been listening, Winwæd?”

I nodded but my lord prior didn’t care. “Father Abbot,” he said, “you asked for someone dependable, a boy who would listen and do as he was told. Forgive me, I have failed.”

I lay down on my face before Abbot Agatho and then, for a while, no one said anything.

It was Father Abbot who finally broke the silence. In the voice he used when someone coughed in choir, Father asked, “Is he always so...so inattentive?”

“Occasionally,” said Father Dagan. “It’s been worse lately.”

“Hunger.”

“Yes. Yes, probably.”

“Well I can’t spare Tatwine anymore. I need him every day now.”

Father Prior didn’t say anything.

“How about one of the others? What’s the tall one’s name...

Wulfhere?”

“Waldhere, but I think Winwæd would be best. If he’ll listen.”

Nose flat against the floor, I smiled.

There was a sound as if someone had sat down and then Father Abbot said, “Well, I don’t know...it probably doesn’t matter that much either way.”

Father Prior must have nodded because I didn’t hear him say anything.