Instead, I’d come back with Wilfred. I knew he’d have scruples about snooping. I also knew I could get round those easily enough. I’d already lectured him half to death about a historian’s need for an enquiring mind.
I was just about to put everything back as I’d found it when I heard voices in the corridor outside. Oh shit! I thought. It was Cuthbert, back already.
Chapter 4
There was a time when I’d have heard the voices long before they were directly outside. But age is a terrible thing. There were perhaps four beats of my rather uncertain heart between hearing the voices and hearing the rattle of a hand on the latch. There wasn’t time to squeeze myself under the bed. Even if I could get under there – some doubt to put it mildly – and then not wheeze away like a snuffling hog, getting out would surely be beyond me.
I thought of trying my confused act when the door opened. Looking blank and talking nonsense had got me out of trouble more than once during my escape from the Empire, and again on the roads through France. Or perhaps I should just heave myself up and confront them. More fun to do this later – but now might have its enjoyable side.
But the hand rattled the latch and then pulled back. Cuthbert was standing outside in deep conversation. I turned my good ear towards the door and strained to hear what was said. Gradually, the muffled whispering resolved itself into the jumbling of Latin with English that even the foreign monks have taken to using.
‘You saw it? You saw it with your own eyes?’ he was asking in a hushed but exalted tone. ‘You saw the knife held aloft? You saw the spurting of blood and heard the long, terrified scream? You saw the bright, hopeful manhood severed from the body? You saw it held before terrified, barely comprehending eyes?’
‘No, Master,’ came the mournful reply. It was Edward. His own voice was coming on to break, and I’d have known it anywhere. ‘The Old One got Brother Joseph to put an arrow in his heart before the knife could fall. I heard My Lord Abbot call that a sin,’ he added.
‘Sinful indeed!’ said Cuthbert, now indignant. His hand brushed the latch again. I braced myself for the effort of getting up. But the door remained shut. ‘To every one of us,’ he said, in his lecturing voice, ‘God has appointed a certain end. We must each of us face our end with cheerful faith in the love of Jesus Christ. For anyone to frustrate that end is a damnable sin – utterly damnable. I thank you, boy, for telling me about the sin and its attendant circumstances. The sin I will take up first thing in the morning with Benedict himself. His indulgence of Brother Aelric’s ways grows increasingly scandalous. This must end in any event. But you have now given me a most opportune means of smoothing any scruples in My Lord Abbot’s heart.
‘But let us turn back to the attendant circumstances. You saw the slitting of the belly and the pulling out of intestines. Was there much blood? Did the boy scream? Was there a cloth soaked in vinegar held to his face?’
From the tone of Edward’s answer, I now had no doubt it had been wank on his sleeve. Next time the lazy wretch misconstrued Cicero, I’d have the arse off him so viciously he wouldn’t sit down for a month of Sundays. For the moment, though, he was getting me out of trouble with Cuthbert. That door hadn’t yet opened, and probably wouldn’t.
‘Softly, softly, my son,’ Cuthbert said. ‘This is not the place for such conversations. You can see the light under the door of Brother Aelric’s cell. We both know he never sleeps, but writes and writes in what is surely the catalogue of shame to serve as his last confession. I think again of the quiet place where the wood is kept. Let us continue there in our usual privacy. It will be – ah – spiritually uplifting for us both were you to remove your clothing and show me the spot where the knife was pressed into the unfortunate’s body…’
I could hear the hushed voices grow quieter as they went back the way they had come. I heard much whispering and laughter. Before he turned the corner, I think I heard Edward talking about his need for a whole cup of honey.
I replaced everything as I’d found it and closed the door quietly behind me. I could have gone back to my own cell. But the thrill of that near discovery had perked me up again. On a whim, I turned away from my own cell and went towards the great hall. There was no chance of embarrassment. Cuthbert must already be hurrying the boy through the basements for their rutting session. It would be daylight before Edward was released to wash out his mouth with anything more substantial than water.
All was quiet in the great hall. The only light was from the now dying and quite smoky brazier. The villagers had bedded down in their own corner. The new baby had died the night before, and the mother just after breakfast. The rest of them were now snoring peacefully. The boys would be sleeping in one of the animal sheds. Everyone else was in his cell. Everything was as normal as, given the circumstances, it could possibly be. Above all, the gate was still securely barred and bolted.
‘My Lord is unable to sleep.’ Because he’d been sitting so still in Benedict’s chair, I hadn’t seen Joseph. Now, he stood and bowed to me across the hall. I could see he had his bow and arrows on the table before him. By the side of his chair came the dull gleam of one of the more ferocious knives from the kitchen.
‘I need a penknife,’ I said, as if I’d been looking for him all along. ‘Mine has been taken.’
Joseph turned and rummaged through a small bag. He took out a wooden case and opened it. He handed me a small surgical knife. ‘It is very sharp, My Lord,’ he said. I looked at the black steel. I could see at once it had better uses than sharpening pens. ‘Would you have me bring it back with you to your cell?’
I shook my head. I could still be trusted to carry knives with me, however sharp. Besides, Joseph was doing his best job here in the hall.
On my way back here, I went past my cell and stood by the side gate. I tried to ignore the white flashes my bladder was sending up once again to my eyes. I leaned hard on the table and fought to control the ragged gasps of my breathing. There was a half-inch gap at the bottom of the gate. Through this came the glare of what seemed to be many torches. I listened hard to the urgent and argumentative conversation beyond. I still couldn’t follow a word. But there was a malevolent sound to those guttural exchanges that chilled me.
I’m now back in my cell and feeling better. I have Edward’s charcoal and the remains of Joseph’s drink to keep me warm. The papyrus sits, invitingly blank, before me. My pens are sharp. Time, then, to forget the horror that lurks and crawls outside the walls of the monastery – break in or go away, let me be clear, there’s bugger all I can do about it. Time also to put aside those ‘lovers’ in the basement; though, if we’re all still alive come dawn, I’ll not overlook Cuthbert’s plot against me: I’ll have the whole truth out of him, and then him and his pretty catamite on to penances neither will forget. Yes, put it all out of mind. I have my papyrus. I have my memories. Let us see how many of these and how much of this I can join before death, in one form or another, stills my trembling hands.
Would you like to know about my first visit to Athens? It’s tough titty if you don’t, as that’s what I now propose to write about. But, even after seventy-four years, it’s a story worth telling.
Chapter 5
It was Tuesday, 10 October 612. I was twenty-two and rejoicing in all the health and beauty of my early manhood. Well, perhaps rejoicing is too strong a word. My mission to Egypt hadn’t gone as smoothly as I’d hoped, and I was beginning to worry about the supplementals Heraclius might have for me once he’d read the report I was carrying with me. Oh, I’d made sure to get Priscus to add his name to it, and we’d bullied Nicetas in Alexandria to attach his own seal as Viceroy of Egypt. Before taking ship, I’d thought that report a little masterpiece of evasion and tasteful self-glorification. I’d hugged myself at some of the wording. Martin had looked up several times from putting my final draft into his best clerical hand to compliment me. Now, a day or so off Cyprus, all I could think about was long faces in the Imperial Council, and that slow, moany voice at the head of the table, asking questions that didn’t admit of easy answers.
But the sun shone from skies of cloudless blue, and the smooth waters of the Mediterranean sparkled as far around the ship as I cared to look. I was His Magnificence the Lord Alaric, Legate Extraordinary of the Emperor.
