Pagan's Vows (2 page)
‘As a novice?’
‘Yes.’ Roland hesitates; glances at me; continues. ‘Pagan is a Christian Arab. He was born a Christian, and he grew up in a monastery in Bethlehem. Now he wants to return to the cloister.’
Bethlehem!
You can hear the word passing from mouth to mouth. You can hear them all fluttering with excitement.
Ho hum. Here we go again.
‘Bethlehem?’ Guilabert’s eyeballs practically pop out of his head and roll across the floor towards us. ‘You mean he’s from the
Holy Land?
’
‘Yes.’
‘And you were there too? In Jerusalem?’
‘Yes.’ Roland stares down at his feet. He looks so strange in this room, surrounded by all these stunted scarecrows. So very big and broad-shouldered. Straight and strong and majestic, like the pillars holding the roof up. Soft light glistening on his golden hair. ‘I was in Jerusalem for six years,’ he says, ‘until it fell to the Turks last summer.’
‘You were there as a knight of the Temple?’ Guilabert’s squinting at the red cross on Roland’s surcoat. Amazing how white that surcoat looks, against all these black robes – especially when you consider that I haven’t washed it since God created Adam. In broad daylight it’s not even cream-coloured any more: it’s somewhere between leper’s-foot brown and fever-pus yellow. War is very hard on the colour white.
‘As you say, Reverend Father. I was a knight of the Temple.’ Roland speaks slowly and carefully. (He’s rehearsed this speech several times.) ‘It was not – that is – I believed that the Rule of the Templars would be my path to salvation.’
He stops, and licks his dry lips. Go on, Roland, you can do it. They’re only monks, after all.
‘I have long wished to serve our Lord Jesus Christ,’ he continues, ‘and in my youth spent many happy hours at the Abbey of Saint Jerome, which lies a short distance from my father’s lands. You may know of Saint Jerome. You may also know that I was born on the other side of Carcassone, in a castle some three days’ ride from your own abbey. My father . . . my father is a man of war.’
A brief silence, as Roland swallows. Man of war? More like a murderous blood-sucking butcher. Guilabert’s frowning, and pulling at his pendulous upper lip; you can almost hear the passage of each word as it rolls slowly down his ear canal and drops into the well of darkness which serves him as a brain. How in God’s name did a turnip like this ever get to be Prior of Saint Martin’s? And where, may I ask, is the abbot? If the abbot is as dumb as his deputy, I don’t know how I’m going to survive, in here.
‘I know of your father, Lord Roland,’ Guilabert finally remarks. You can tell that he’s heard all the very best stories: there’s something about the way he wriggles in his chair.
Roland takes a deep breath, and ploughs on.
‘My father raised me to fight,’ he says, ‘but I was not happy in his service. I wanted to be a monk at Saint Jerome. So I applied to the abbot, who would not admit me to his house. He said I was born to fight, and that I should fight for God. He said I should go to Jerusalem, where I would be battling against the Infidel. It was there that I joined the Templars, and fought against Saladin’s Infidel army when it conquered the Holy Land. It was there that Pagan first entered my service.’
‘And now you have returned to Languedoc.’ (Well done, Guilabert. A brilliant deduction.) Roland nods, and gropes absent-mindedly for his sword-hilt. But it isn’t there any more. So he tucks the wandering hand into his belt.
‘Yes,’ he murmurs, ‘now I have returned to Languedoc. I have sheathed my sword, and wish to pray in peace. I beseech you humbly, Reverend Father, to accept me as your brother in Christ.’
No mention of Esclaramonde, of course. But why complicate matters? Why dwell on the fact that Roland came back to Languedoc to raise troops for the Holy Crusade, and fell in love with a heretic named Esclaramonde? Why admit that she died in a pointless, bloody skirmish on his father’s lands, and that he blames himself for her death? Why point out that he’s sheathed his sword in penance? It’ll only upset the monks.
Guilabert’s jowls wobble as he inclines his head.
‘I understand your wish to serve God,’ he says solemnly. ‘But are you not serving Him with honour and courage as a knight of the Temple? A knight of the Temple is a Monk of War. Are you not dedicated to fighting the Lord’s battles already? Why do you wish to abandon one holy Rule for another?’
God save us, there’s a question. But Roland remains calm – at least on the outside. He doesn’t even lose control of his voice.
‘I no longer believe that anyone can truly serve Christ with a drawn sword,’ he declares firmly, whereupon Guila-bert grunts. He doesn’t sound too sympathetic.
‘So be it,’ he mumbles. ‘But in laying down your worldly arms, Lord Roland, you will be taking up the all-powerful arms of obedience, to fight under the Lord Christ our true king. Do you realise that?’
‘I do.’
‘You will also surrender dominion over your own body and will, obeying with perfect submission the precepts of our most holy Father, the Blessed Benedict of Sacred Memory, under whose ancient and enlightened Rule we imitate in our lives what our Lord said, namely: “I came not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me”.’
(Guilabert’s obviously said this a hundred times before. He recites it like the Lord’s Prayer, his voice a sapless drone.)
‘It is our calling and our privilege to love the Lord God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength,’ he adds, ‘and in so doing to forsake all worldly things: our possessions, our low desires, our friends and family. Knowing all this, are you still steadfast of purpose?’
Roland bows. ‘I am,’ he says.
‘And you, my son?’ (Who, me?) ‘Are you willing to look within yourself, to prove yourself with all your actions, seeking not temporal recompense but the promise of God’s glory?’
Urn – well . . . yes. I suppose so. Yes.
‘Yes.’
‘And will you prefer nothing to the love of Christ, struggling to attain the twelve steps of humility in the knowledge that undisciplined sons shall perish, as the Scripture testifies, and that to refuse obedience is like the crime of idolatry?’
Oh hell. Staring up into those frog’s eyes, into that puffy, vacant face with its triple chin and sweaty brow and its network of little red veins around the nose. Perfect obedience? To this brainless tub of lard?
But I have to. I simply have to. Because it’s the only way. ‘I will make my submission, and prefer nothing to the love of Christ.’
There, I’ve said it. No going back now. Glance at Roland, but he’s looking at his feet again. Guilabert raises a pudgy hand, and traces a cross in the air.
‘
Dominus sic in vobis quod aeternam vitam pervenire
mereamini
,’ he mutters. ‘In the name of God I welcome you, Lord Roland Roucy de Bram, and you, Pagan Kidrouk, into this noble and consecrated abbey, the Abbey of Saint Martin, so that you may follow the Rule of Saint Benedict in preparation for taking a vow of perpetual obedience, perpetual stability, and
conversio morum in perpetuum.
May the Lord’s blessing be upon you in your endeavours.’
A low ‘Amen’ from the rest of the assembly. Do we have to say something, now? But Guilabert presses on, as if he’s in a hurry to proceed to more urgent matters.
‘I will ask you both to move into the church, where you will wait until the end of chapter,’ he declares. ‘You will then receive your tonsure and your habit, and our novice-master Clement will take charge of you. As a novice, you are in training to be a monk. You are not permitted to leave the abbey, nor to read the lessons, nor to sing the anthems or responses. At the end of two months, the Rule will be read to you, and you will be asked if you are still steadfast of purpose. If you are, you will return to the noviciate for six more months. At the end of that time, the Rule will be read to you again. If you give the same reply, you will be tested for another four months before being received into the Order. Is that quite clear?’
Roland’s shocked. I can tell by the way his lips tighten. Twelve
months?
Until we’re
received?
I should have warned him.
‘Quite clear, Reverend Father.’ (Better if I speak for both of us.) ‘Should we – do we go through this door, here?’
‘Yes. Just turn right, and that will take you past the sacristy.
You’ll find a door into the southern aisle of the church.’ ‘Thank you, Reverend Father.’
‘
Benedicite.
’
Come on, Roland, we’re being dismissed. As I tug his sleeve he seems to snap out of it. Bows low towards the prior’s chair. Turns to face the inner door.
Suddenly Guilabert opens his mouth again.
‘Behold the law under which you wish to serve,’ he intones. ‘If you can observe it, enter. If you cannot, freely depart.’
Freely depart? Not likely. We’ve come this far – no one’s going to turn us back now.
T
hey must be joking. I can’t wear this. I’ll break my neck.
‘It’s too big for me.’ Flap, flap. Just look at the sleeves, for God’s sake! ‘How am I going to hold up my skirts if I can’t find my hands?’
‘Here.’ Roland tugs at the folds of fabric under my belt. He lifts the hemline about a finger’s length, and leaves me looking pregnant. ‘I’m sure it won’t be for long. If we cut off about this much . . .’
‘But surely they could have found something my size? I know I’m small, but I’m not that small! I look like Jonah inside the whale.’ Or like a maggot in an ox-hide. ‘And what about you? Your skirts are almost up to your knees.’
‘Oh Pagan, it’s not that bad.’ He lifts an arm; the black wool ends at least a handspan above his wrist. ‘I’ll just let the hem down.’
‘
You?
’ Don’t make me laugh. Since when have you ever picked up a needle, let alone threaded one? ‘No you won’t. I’ll do it.’
‘Pagan, you’re not my squire any more. You are my brother.’ (Gently.) ‘It’s not your place to serve me, but to serve Christ.’
How strange he looks, without his beard. His face seems so much longer. So much softer. And that scar along his jawbone . . . I never knew he had that scar.
‘You look younger, without your beard.’ Younger and sadder, but I won’t say that. ‘It suits you.’
‘And you look older without your hair,’ he says, smiling. Christ in a cream cheese sauce. Feeling around for the bald spot on the crown of my head. There it is. My new tonsure.
‘It feels so odd.’ Ugh! Like the top of an egg. ‘Does it look as odd as it feels?’
‘Not at all.’
‘And it’s cold, too. Does yours feel cold?’
‘A little.’
‘Be honest, now. Are you sure my scalp doesn’t look like a pig’s rump?’
He shakes his head, still smiling. But I don’t believe him. Just because Roland looks all right, it doesn’t mean that I do. Roland would look all right if you rolled him in dung and dragged him through a field of nettles, face down.
Oh well, I don’t suppose it matters. And I shouldn’t be thinking about my appearance, anyway. Monks aren’t supposed to be ornamental – not like the stuff in this sacristy. What a haul! The embroidered linen; the silver candlesticks; the golden vestments.
‘Look at this, will you?’ Picking up a candle snuffer. ‘It looks like topaz.’
‘Put it down, Pagan.’
‘It’s all right, I won’t hurt anything.’
‘Please put it down.’
‘I wonder what those things are for?’ Huge bronze tubs, lined up under the window. ‘Soup, do you think?’
‘Pagan –’
The sudden sound of creaking hinges. Whoops! Here’s the chamberlain. He stops in his tracks, throws back his head, and laughs out loud.
Yes, that’s right, go on, laugh. I know we look like a couple of fools on sticks.
‘Oh-ah!’ he chortles. ‘Those aren’t the best fit, are they?’ He’s balancing a bundle of clothes on his stomach. ‘You’ll do yourselves an injury in those,’ he says. ‘I’d better order some new ones.’
You mean you don’t have any more spares? God preserve us. He dumps his bundle onto a prayer-stool, and extracts a long, trailing garment of black wool. His face is as red as a drunkard’s nose, wide and rugged; he’s practically bald, but his eyebrows make up for it. They look like a pair of drowned kittens glued to a sandstone cliff.
‘This is a scapular,’ he explains. ‘You put it on over your robe. See this hole? Your head goes through there, and you attach your cowl with these strings. Then your shoulder-cape goes on top. Here, I’ll show you.’ Oh no, please, I’ll do it myself. ‘Hold still. That’s it. There.’ (Suddenly smothered in black wool.) ‘Oh-ah. You’re a dainty fellow, aren’t you?’
You mean I’m a skinny little midget. Don’t be shy, just say what you’re thinking.
‘I’ll have a look in the children’s wardrobe,’ he decides. ‘We have oblates here as young as six years old. There might be something in their cast-offs that you can wear until the new stuff comes in.’ (Well thanks. Thanks a lot. That really makes me feel better.) ‘This is your spare pair of drawers,’ he continues. ‘This is your spare shirt. You’ll get five pairs of socks, a pair of sheepskin gloves for winter, and a pair of fur-lined winter boots. With everything else – like that scapular, for instance – you get two of each. Clothes to be washed go in the cloister chest every Thursday. Clothes to be mended go in the chapter-house chest. If you want your boots oiled, bring them to me. Same if you need new drawers. If I’m not here (and I’m away quite a lot, in the summer) you can go to Brother Bernard, the sacristan.’ He moves across to a big carved box under a pile of linen. Shoves the linen onto the floor. Takes a key from the bunch at his waist and fishes around in the bronze keyhole, which guards the box like a silent sentry. At last he flings the lid open. ‘Here are your combs and knives,’ he says. ‘You’ll get your stylus and writing tablet from Brother Clement. Oh, and these are for minor repairs.’ He produces two floppy leather housewives, each containing two needles and a spool of black thread. ‘Anything more serious than a fallen hem, and you take it straight to the chapter-house. Is that clear?’