‘Confirm to me, if you can,’ I said loudly, now in Latin, ‘that you have received all other rites of the Faith. These include baptism and communion.’ Just in case, I repeated myself in English. It was a redundant question, but had to be asked if the last rite was to be correctly administered. The pale eyes blinked slightly. ‘You know, then,’ I continued, ‘that I am qualified by virtue of my priestly office to administer these rites.’ No doubt, my qualifications were decidedly iffy. But, since no one in England had seen fit to question them on my arrival there, now wasn’t the time to disabuse poor Wilfred of their validity. All told, I’d sooner have had a real priest brought in. I hadn’t bothered raising this with Jacob. He could certainly have got me one – just as he’d managed to gather the necessary props. But now wasn’t the time for introducing more Christians into the house. And all that really mattered was that Wilfred believed me. If death really was other than an infinite sleep still deeper than the one from which I was lately recovered, it would be a most perverse God who took against him on my account.
With dramatic emphases and pauses that any real priest would have envied rotten, I went through the prayers as I’d heard them said by others any number of times. The gaunt fingers fluttered ever so little on the wooden crucifix, and a thin trickle of the olive oil I’d just blessed ran down from his forehead on to the bed clothes. At last, I produced a fragment of the Host. I broke it in two and placed the smaller part between the dry lips. As I did so, they trembled and a faint effort was made to move them.
And it was now done. All that remained was the final prayer. I opened my mouth again and, Edward joining in, launched into the ancient words:
‘O Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prisons: We humbly commend the soul of this thy servant, our dear brother, into thy hands, as into the hands of a faithful Creator, and most merciful Saviour; most humbly beseeching thee, that it may be precious in thy sight. Wash it, we pray thee, in the blood of that immaculate Lamb, that was slain to take away the sins of the world…’
The lips moved again. This time, Wilfred was able to speak.
‘Brother Aelric,’ he whispered. ‘Brother Aelric.’
I moved closer to the dying boy’s mouth. ‘Be at peace, my child,’ I said in my reassuring voice. ‘There is nothing now to fear, in this world or the next. Of all you might have confessed I have now absolved you.’ That should have sorted things. But, no – the lips moved again.
‘I have sinned, Brother Aelric,’ he gasped with urgent though failing energy. ‘Such sins have I committed and never confessed to you. It was my plan – but God has called me so soon…’
He trailed off, and I thought this would be it. Jacob moved forward with a beaker of something aromatic to put under his nose. But the boy struggled with the feeble ghost of one of his coughing fits. I waved Jacob back.
Then, with an immense effort, Wilfred continued in a desperate croak: ‘You must know that Brother Cuthbert – yes, Brother Cuthbert. .. He commanded, and I obeyed. He told me – he said… I discovered…’
He trailed off once more, and now closed his eyes. Jacob moved forward again, beaker still in hand. There was no point letting him try anything more. I’ve seen the shadow of death pass over any number of faces. It’s not so much a darkening of colour as a loss of something. I’ve also held the hands of the dying so often. With its usual rapidity, I could now feel the mysterious transformation of living flesh and bone into the sort of meat you buy in a butcher’s market. I didn’t need to see the eyes turn up, or the mouth open wide for that last, rattling sigh, to know it was all up with the boy. He was as near gone as mattered. Even if some spark of life continued deep within, there was no point in supposing he was aware of anything outside himself. Still, I continued with the prayer to the end. Deathbeds are as much for the living as the dead. Besides, if what Edward believed was his own affair, there was a Jew present, and a certain appearance had to be kept up. I finished the prayer, then waited. As the lips sagged fully, and all tension went out of the body, I stood back and allowed Jacob to press his mirror to the boy’s face. He drew it back and held it up for me, still unmisted. It really was over.
I sat down and took the full cup in both hands. I looked at Edward, who was still staring, still impassive – except, I was pleased to notice, for the single tear he’d managed to squeeze out – at the lifeless, shrivelled body. If you hadn’t known that his fourteenth birthday would have been a full month later, you’d have thought this the body of an old man, broken down by years of sickness. On his arrival in the monastery, Wilfred had told me of his ambition to train for the priesthood, and join the mission the English Church was fitting out for the conversion of the Germans. Except for the collapse of his health – only slightly arrested by our passage through the Narrow Straits – I rather thought he’d enjoyed the adventure forced on him by Edward. In place of all his hopes, though, here he lay dead. And I, more than seven times his age, had prayed him over the threshold of death. How many more of those round me would I outlive before I finally turned to rancid butcher’s meat?
But it was a pointless question. I drained the cup and held it out for a refill. Jacob pulled the sheet up over the face and muttered something about arranging a funeral. For a Jew, he had surprising contacts in the Church. Then again, he was a doctor, and few who need the healing art bother with which God – if any – its practitioners may care to worship.
‘This has been a sad event,’ I said lamely – and what point was there in making a fuss? What point in saying what might be really in my heart? ‘But let us be inspired as Christians by the calm resolution with which Wilfred was taken unto God.’
No – that wouldn’t do! It was a worthless pretence. Including the two old women who’d step forward in a moment to lay out the body, there were five of us in the room. Three of us weren’t even supposed to be Christians. The other two believed bugger all. My words didn’t touch one of us. When something as empty of meaning as death happens, silence may be the best response. I wanted to get out into the garden, and walk round and round in the sun, looking at the flowers and the fountain, and thinking about what to do next.
‘Edward, I will speak with you later this afternoon,’ I said. ‘What has just happened – together with other matters – alters all our plans. I need to discuss these with you. There are some decisions that only you can make. Until then, I suggest you go to our room and lie down.’ He had the dark circles under his eyes of one who hasn’t slept. If I cared to notice this at all, I might prefer to think that grief had kept him awake.
Chapter 26
‘His illness was, I am assured, one of excessive internal heat,’ Jacob said firmly. ‘It was brought on by a reaction to the excessive cold and wetness of his native land. That would explain why its like has never been known here in Africa. It also confirms that the illness had its roots in his native land.’
I nodded and gave a non-committal grunt. Jacob sighed and continued walking beside me in silence. I had completed five circuits of the garden, and, now rested from a long pause beside the fountain, had begun a sixth. The sun and the return of everyday normality had failed to lift my spirits. I might as well still have been sitting beside the deathbed.
‘It was the opinion of Aristotle himself, that dry heat-’ Jacob tried again.
I stopped at the mention of the hated name and scowled at him. ‘If he’d confined himself to literary criticism and pure logic chopping,’ I said coldly, ‘Aristotle might be more deserving of our respect. As it is, the man corrupted every natural science he touched. All knowledge of things, as opposed to the manipulation of ideas, begins with a rejection of Aristotle. I don’t believe that story about how the Saracens burned the library in Alexandria. But if they really did heat their baths with the collected works of that man, they surely made the world a more enlightened place.’ I looked at Jacob’s shocked face. For the first time that afternoon, I smiled. I untensed my shoulders and put a hand on his arm. He was trying to help. He was the son of a host who’d saved my life. I stepped forward again on our sixth circuit.
‘But, surely, My Lord Alaric,’ he said, keeping pace, ‘the Philosopher is the common heritage of all civilised men, regardless of origin or faith?’
‘Common curse, more like,’ I replied. Now less wintry, I smiled again. I meant what I’d said about the man’s writings. This being said, the story about Omar and the Alexandrian Library was quite untrue – I knew that much, as I’d been its first author. I smiled once more. Jacob had done his best by the boy. If that hadn’t been enough, it was no fault of Aristotle or of anyone else in particular. It was certainly no fault of Jacob’s. I looked up and breathed in the warm, scented air of an African spring. Since we’d hit on a subject that didn’t lead back to the deathbed, or some other matter we’d tacitly agreed not to discuss, I might as well carry on with the lecture.
