A cock crowed and the farm slowly took to life. And Geoffrey finally climbed down out of the loft, entering into the daylight with heavy-lidded eyes. Selden thought, “The young sleep deep,” and he called to the boy, “You’ll see to the horse and mule, won’t you? I won’t be a minute.”
Geoffrey nodded yes.
“Good lad.”
The farmer’s oldest son came to milk the cows, a cat or two at his heels. And the farmer’s wife came out too, presumably to remind the priest that he could have had a bed inside.
“Wasn’t it cold a might, Pater? Not hardly spring, is it?”
“Not too cold, Matron. It’s how I slept as a boy. Always nice to visit the past.”
The woman looked at the priest with a serious expression. “It’s the future I look to. And will it bring promise?” She spat. Granted, away from the priest, but crude manners nevertheless.
Selden had seen pessimism before. Even in the brightest times, some people held on to their dark thoughts. And it came with age, along with aches and pains, a distaste for the naive young, a fear of falling or disease. There was no lack for things to dread, but still...
“Have you heard about the rooks then, Pater?”
Selden just stared.
“That they’ve all flyed away? You haven’t heard?”
“Matron, it’s no reason to fret a soul.”
“A soul’s one thing, but what about meat on the table? What about broke bones, those that won’t heal?”
Wives’ tales, Selden knew. “We’ll pray, Matron.”
“There’s that.” She looked unconvinced.
“Matron, here, please,” and he reached out his hand to hers and dropped a copper into it.
“Thank you, Pater.” She was quiet a moment, but then asked, “Are you sure?”
“Sure you’ll make good use of it.”
“Yes, Pater. Times what they are.”
He lifted an arm to bless her, and recited, “Every day I will praise You, for You open Your hand and satisfy the desires of all things. May you and all your family be so blessed, Matron.”
“God bless you, Pater.” She placed one hand on his arm. “Are you sure you won’t break the fast with us?”
“No. Thank you, but no. The boy and I are fasting till sundown.”
“So we best stay busy,” he added. “God bless.”
Geoffrey had the master’s mule and his own horse prepared and the two walked them back to the village church. Inside, the candle on the altar had burned down and gone out. Selden decided to save the other candles until the wake and funeral, if it came to that. When it comes to it, he realized.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Eighteen.
The night passed. Selden felt the restlessness that burned off the boy, who was wrapped up in his cloak in a far corner. It was Selden who suggested the boy sleep away from the draft of the shuttered door. Instead, the older man took the space by the square-shaped door where the hay and straw might be easily loaded into the loft. The barn was built into a low hillside and the door, just large enough, looked out away from the barnyard and the farm’s cottage, a building smaller in fact than the barn. The boy would have a small measure of privacy.
The master was soon asleep. The small shifting of the milk cows below seemed to lull him like a mother’s lullaby might. The plop of manure and faint rustling of mice bothered him not the least. “This is how I always slept as a boy,” he told Geoffrey when they turned in, after their prayers. Except on the coldest nights, he remembered, when my brother would consent to my sharing the bed, head to toe and shivering as the wind blew through any chinking we could manage between the logs of the cottage. My father would sleep next to the fire in our one chair. He’d feed the fire through the night–we never lacked for wood–while my mother slept with her latest swaddled child.
We were a large family, he almost said aloud. Branches! He nearly exclaimed. And who am I talking to? Selden chided himself. As he got older, he noticed, he conversed with nearly anything. At the school, he would complain to a small portrait he hung on one wall, an image of a church father whose writing Selden especially enjoyed. He wrote almost as one might really speak and in these written sermons confessed to nearly every sin. He was a sainted man.
That dawn came without interruption was something that pleased the master. He rose out of the tangle of his cloak and scarf and the blanket the farm family insisted he take. He scratched and shook his head. Squeezed a louse. (Damn things.) And half considered unshuttering the hay door so he might relieve himself with ease. Instead, he headed down the ladder from the loft and found the edge of the mews in the half-light.
The village priest must be no worse. Someone would have come for me otherwise, he thought. Uninterrupted sleep, that’s a blessing, too. Maybe today will be manageable, though an ember day. “No disappointments, Father; it will be a long enough day.”
The master was soon asleep. The small shifting of the milk cows below seemed to lull him like a mother’s lullaby might. The plop of manure and faint rustling of mice bothered him not the least. “This is how I always slept as a boy,” he told Geoffrey when they turned in, after their prayers. Except on the coldest nights, he remembered, when my brother would consent to my sharing the bed, head to toe and shivering as the wind blew through any chinking we could manage between the logs of the cottage. My father would sleep next to the fire in our one chair. He’d feed the fire through the night–we never lacked for wood–while my mother slept with her latest swaddled child.
We were a large family, he almost said aloud. Branches! He nearly exclaimed. And who am I talking to? Selden chided himself. As he got older, he noticed, he conversed with nearly anything. At the school, he would complain to a small portrait he hung on one wall, an image of a church father whose writing Selden especially enjoyed. He wrote almost as one might really speak and in these written sermons confessed to nearly every sin. He was a sainted man.
That dawn came without interruption was something that pleased the master. He rose out of the tangle of his cloak and scarf and the blanket the farm family insisted he take. He scratched and shook his head. Squeezed a louse. (Damn things.) And half considered unshuttering the hay door so he might relieve himself with ease. Instead, he headed down the ladder from the loft and found the edge of the mews in the half-light.
The village priest must be no worse. Someone would have come for me otherwise, he thought. Uninterrupted sleep, that’s a blessing, too. Maybe today will be manageable, though an ember day. “No disappointments, Father; it will be a long enough day.”
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Interlude.
“Hayfoot! Strawfoot!” the brother cried. “And are you a fool, too?” he asked, his voice like thunder, deep and rumbling.
Just last night the lightning cracked upon us, the booming steps of the storm like a giant’s pace. “Gad, but it’s loud,” and me at the edge of the bed, ready to run for a mother's shelter. “Is it war?” I might have shouted. “Abed with thee, child” the prefect told me. “It’s just a storm, is it not? And you shoutin’ war. What overcomes you so? Hush. It’s abed, to be sure.”
To be sure, Brother, a fool I am. And, Brother, fool enough to know, I’m not made for marching, though I might grow in fondness for murder. I sent to him as much, but he could not read me. He just heard my wheezing and was disgusted. And me, I heard his complaints, his blasted tooth aching so and they’d tear it out. They will, God help me, he thought. Like something for shoein’ a horse, the clamp they wave about. God. And the crunch of it. That’s the worse. Poor lamentable me, I ache so. Worse than a kick to me sack. But what good is me stand anyway?
“Left and right, you whelp! Do you not know them by now?”
“Brother, if you would just ask? I know the Latin, too.”
“Vile cur, I say. Dogs have no Latin, I won’t hear it!”
“Pater.” Rian said, and he took the priest’s hand. “I heard you were poorly. Well ... I thought of you, and it was clear.”
The priest didn’t stir, but his breathing was easy. Rian felt the fever leave.
“I was out grubbin’ for asparagus.” And he thought, What might be its truename?
“Oh, stand to, you sorry pup. Left, right and bother. You’ll never march. Your head’s too big for it. You’re heart’s too big for it, too. So who will you fool next? Go back to your books and your candle wax.
“Brother, I’ll try harder...”
“Laddie, don’t go bother a brother,” the man told him. “Bugger a brother,” he muttered. “Oh, the whole lot of you." He cast eyes eyes over us. "I’d best go shovel coal.”
And the winter came hard. I remember the troughs gone froze over and the cows’ staring. Like licking for salt with less chance. Chaney-eyed, the beasts, the breath of them a vapor. Was it their prayers, like the incense we burned on the Lord’s day, our plea for the Christ, the Son of God? When would he come ... and would we know him? Pater asked just so, “Will you know him?” and the lot of us shook our heads. Would it be poetry he spoke? Like the psalms? Or will he just speak with his sword and have at us sinners?
We’d know then.
Just last night the lightning cracked upon us, the booming steps of the storm like a giant’s pace. “Gad, but it’s loud,” and me at the edge of the bed, ready to run for a mother's shelter. “Is it war?” I might have shouted. “Abed with thee, child” the prefect told me. “It’s just a storm, is it not? And you shoutin’ war. What overcomes you so? Hush. It’s abed, to be sure.”
To be sure, Brother, a fool I am. And, Brother, fool enough to know, I’m not made for marching, though I might grow in fondness for murder. I sent to him as much, but he could not read me. He just heard my wheezing and was disgusted. And me, I heard his complaints, his blasted tooth aching so and they’d tear it out. They will, God help me, he thought. Like something for shoein’ a horse, the clamp they wave about. God. And the crunch of it. That’s the worse. Poor lamentable me, I ache so. Worse than a kick to me sack. But what good is me stand anyway?
“Left and right, you whelp! Do you not know them by now?”
“Brother, if you would just ask? I know the Latin, too.”
“Vile cur, I say. Dogs have no Latin, I won’t hear it!”
“Pater.” Rian said, and he took the priest’s hand. “I heard you were poorly. Well ... I thought of you, and it was clear.”
The priest didn’t stir, but his breathing was easy. Rian felt the fever leave.
“I was out grubbin’ for asparagus.” And he thought, What might be its truename?
“Oh, stand to, you sorry pup. Left, right and bother. You’ll never march. Your head’s too big for it. You’re heart’s too big for it, too. So who will you fool next? Go back to your books and your candle wax.
“Brother, I’ll try harder...”
“Laddie, don’t go bother a brother,” the man told him. “Bugger a brother,” he muttered. “Oh, the whole lot of you." He cast eyes eyes over us. "I’d best go shovel coal.”
And the winter came hard. I remember the troughs gone froze over and the cows’ staring. Like licking for salt with less chance. Chaney-eyed, the beasts, the breath of them a vapor. Was it their prayers, like the incense we burned on the Lord’s day, our plea for the Christ, the Son of God? When would he come ... and would we know him? Pater asked just so, “Will you know him?” and the lot of us shook our heads. Would it be poetry he spoke? Like the psalms? Or will he just speak with his sword and have at us sinners?
We’d know then.
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