‘Aye, it was a miserable winter’s day, when Abbot Walter set off for Buckfast, many years ago now, and Abbot Walter had a long, hard way of it. Strong of character, he was. Brave. Off he went, aye, him with none but his advisers and a few clerks to take notes, and all because of an argument between Tavistock here and the Brothers at Buckfast.’
The almoner paused and stared about him, mouth slightly open, tongue noisily burrowing at the gap where his teeth should have been. He often did this, as though it was an aid to thought, but Gerard privately believed that it was an affectation, one which Peter had cultivated to repel novices.
‘Aye, Abbot Walter was a good, holy man. He lived as the Rule dictated, and he expected his monks to do the same.’ He glowered at the boys as though expecting modern youths like them to dispute the justice of Abbot Walter’s attitude. Shaking his head he stared into the flames before continuing gruffly.
‘Like you, they were, some of them: always wanting more ale and wine and meat than they needed. And when the Abbot was gone, the bad ones among them decided to make the most of his absence. One in particular, there was – an acolyte called Milbrosa, learning the ways of the chantry, a happy, cheery fellow with a winning manner and an open, honest face, the sort of man who finds it easy to make friends. Bold, he was, and disrespectful – always prepared to make jest of older monks. He scoffed when he was told that his levity would lead to punishment – if not in this world, then in the next.
‘Aye, he behaved like many of you would. When a cat dies, they say that the rats will dance and sing, and that’s how Milbrosa and the younger monks were when Abbot Walter left. Before his packhorse had even crossed under the Court Gate, Milbrosa led a few of his friends down to the undercroft beneath the Abbot’s lodging, and there they broke into a barrel of his best wine.’
There was a subdued intake of breath. The novices listened intently, utterly absorbed as he spoke, not because his strange, slurred speech made him difficult to understand, but because Peter seemed to take an almost sadistic pleasure in seeing how badly he could terrify his young audience. And the youngsters loved to be thrilled by his fearsome tales.
His voice dropped, and all had to lean forward and strain to pick up his words as he said grimly, ‘You can imagine it. Five monks all vying to swallow more than any other, like so many Scotch gluttons set loose to pillage a tavern!’
Gerard could hear the hot fury in his voice, and he saw a small gobbet of spittle fly from Peter’s lips. It flew through the air, falling with a short hiss into the fire. Yet when he lifted his eyes to the old monk, Peter’s angry mood had flown. He was contemplatively tugging at a thread of his gown.
‘Aye. Drunks. A terrible thing. Milbrosa was the worst of them. He’d have emptied a whole pipe on his own if he could. They guzzled their fill, getting horribly, beastly drunk, befouling themselves, spewing and retching, and yet returning to wash away the taste, drinking more and more, forgetting their divine duties, ignoring the bells calling them to Mass, not attending the chapter meetings. It was a terrible thing. Terrible.
‘But they couldn’t remain besotted for ever. After some days, they gradually stirred themselves among the wreckage and filth they had created there, and when they saw what they had done, the appalling truth of their crimes broke upon them like a thunderous wave smiting a ship.’
He sat with that characteristic twisting of his features as he imagined the scene in his mind’s eye. Gerard wondered whether the hideous grimace was in truth nothing more than a relaxation of his face – it was the nearest the almoner could come to a smile since the Scottish reivers he so detested had attacked him and left him for dead.
‘You can just see it, can’t you? There they all were, bepissed with terror in the undercroft. They had stolen from the abbot, and stealing is a terrible sin. But worse, they had taken his favourite wines! What more evil crime could a man commit? There they lay, moaning and groaning, waiting for the earth to open and swallow them, or for the ceiling to fall and crush them. That would be preferable to their pain… or living with the shame of their sins!’
Gerard shivered. ‘The shame of their sins,’ he repeated to himself. The boy knew instinctively that Peter was thinking of him as he spoke those words, because Peter had guessed he was a thief; he had seen Gerard at night, and later he had warned him, telling him to confess his crimes and stop his sinning. The almoner’s scowling features had petrified the boy – although not so much as the man who had ordered him to steal just once more, or be exposed to the abbot as the thief he was.
‘They set themselves to with a will,’ Old Peter resumed. ‘All went to the chapter meeting and confessed their guilt – not that they needed to. Their brother monks were well aware of what had been done, and
