Part Thirteen.

Selden signed himself and then turned to where the bishop lay. He spoke quietly a spell that would bring back the bishop’s appetite, making the small gestures called for, questioning himself still if this was what the dying man would want. He took away the fever, too, knowing that he was just masking the symptoms of the man’s dying.

He called for Matron then, not out loud, but by placing the gentlest of suggestions into her mind. Matron would sense it as curiosity or concern. And, sure enough, she appeared in just a moment, her eyes searching those of the middle-aged priest for some sign of hope.

She came close and Selden whispered, “How well do you know this man?”

Matron’s mind scurried between anger and suspicion and fear. What a question to ask, she thought. This is no man lying here; he’s a priest. And do you mean, am I intimate with him? No, I love my husband still–God rest his soul–and I wouldn’t sin with a priest. How dare you, her mind demanded. And of course I know him well, Pater; he’s my parish priest. I confess to him. Less likely would I turn to you for penance and forgiveness. So, what do you mean: Do I know him? Is he not what he seems?

Matron finally spoke, “I am as close to him as if he were my brother.”

“Then you’ll care for him until the end? For you should know, Matron, he is not long with us. He’s been shriven. He calls for the end, so that he might begin his new life.”

Matron’s eyes filled with tears. She struggled to speak, “Is there nothing you can do? I would ask– ”

“Nothing more can be done... Or, at least, ought to be done.” He looked at her closely, calling her attention to his eyes, and perhaps his heart. Might she hear him as he felt? “One reaches a place of quiet–even when everyone else is wailing and in tears, even when one’s self makes a terrible groaning... A vast place of quiet and towering clouds, that race toward the setting sun. And then comes certainty. Death comes as naturally as a heartbeat, as unplanned as our breathing. We make the steps as though we are young again. The best of us go skipping, making songs like those children might sing.”

The old woman smiled, a bit. Perhaps she understood.

Selden told her, “I’ve done some small things. For comfort. I’ve taken the fever away and given back an appetite. Don’t be fooled by it, Matron. Your priest hasn’t long to live.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Let me tell you something. Not a secret, but tell no one until he’s passed. Will you be bound?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Your priest is a bishop.”

Matron showed her surprise, but looked at the dying man as if she had known all along. Selden heard her thoughts: We’ve known that he is a holy man.

“He gave up his crosier when his health began to fail. And was called here to Cald Mere. Tiny Cald Mere.” To himself, Selden reasoned, He came to Cald Mere to teach this boy. One would receive no better catechism.

“So he is Primus to us, Matron. When he wakes, Primus will be hungry. Give him broth and ... I have a loaf of bread with me, from the Archmage. It is the eulogia, but some days old. Perhaps it will be a sop for you two, for you should eat of it also. It is blessed bread and you share in its blessing as you tend to Primus.” Selden placed a hand on the woman’s head. “God reward you, Matron.”

He knew her well enough from what he had seen in her. She was a kind woman, devoted more to her priest than to her God, perhaps, but that was her path.

And Selden knew, “All paths lead to God.”

Part Twelve.

There were others who might do more for the bishop, Selden knew. There were charms that kept fevers down, spells that would bind wounds, all manner of things a healall might do ... but the bishop was an old man and worn thin. Worn out, really. He was ready for death. And, thankfully, not afraid. He needed no strengthening of his faith, no consolation, no reminders of God’s grace. What more could Selden do?

Would the village grieve him? Selden didn’t know. Matron would, of course.

And when could he ever be replaced? Cald Mere was so far north, so distant from any real throne. The people here had a taste of freedom, there was no doubt of it, but its cost came heavily: the hardest of lives and bone-grinding poverty (Selden’s father would have exclaimed, “God love ‘em! They have not even a pot to piss in!) Restless sons would leave for the wars and most would never come back, intoxicated as they were with the spilled blood and free-flowing wine, free women too, and song.

It was sad to consider, so Selden pushed it from his mind.

“I have a job to do, Primus,” Selden whispered. “Even if it means taking a talented boy from his village.”

The bishop slept.

“And what about this boy’s having a destiny? It can’t be to plough dirt, can it? Not if he has the gift. That would be the sin you would have welcomed, Primus.”

Selden pushed his thoughts away again.

“We’ve put that behind us anyway.”

Large-Hearted Boy. Part Twelve.

Early last week, late this week. Please check tomorrow!

Large-Hearted Boy. Part Eleven.

Selden remained quiet, waiting for the bishop to finish.

The bishop asked, “You see my stubbornness, don’t you, Selden?”

Selden nodded ever so slightly. Perhaps the bishop saw. He would sense it, nonetheless.

“And you understand that I would have named the boy if his parents had consented? I wouldn’t have told anyone about this boy’s gift. I wouldn’t now if I had the choice. How can I be forgiven for something for which I won’t repent?”

Selden answered him, “Primus, surely it’s not a sin to follow one’s heart. And the decision wasn’t yours to make. You’ve done the right thing. After all, the parents decided. You didn’t thwart them. You haven’t sinned.”

“Yes...”

“I absolve you, in the name of God.”

And the bishop’s burden fell away. He saw himself as if from a distance, and the world took full bloom. He wouldn’t see another frost, he knew. It was clear to him now, and he became oddly dispassionate, accepting that he had seen the seasons turn, first so wildly, forcibly, and now so steady and certain. It was as though his life had been a child’s top, ready to tumble still.

Selden stood. “Where is the oil of the sick, Primus? Is it here?’ He looked just past the bishop’s cot and saw the small vial. “Of course it is.” Selden moved to the other side of the cot and poured a small amount of the oil into his left palm.

At a man’s deathbed, all distinctions of rank disappear. “Brother, I anoint you,” he told the bishop, and after dipping his thumb in the oil traced a small circle on the bishop’s forehead and then touched his lips and then his chest, just above where the heart beats. He traced circles on the bishop’s hands, too, tracing the palms as was the tradition with priests. Ordinary men, even kings, offered the backs of their hands.

There were prayers to be said, but the bishop had fallen back into his slumber. Selden sat again and prayed for them both.

So he prayed, from memory–his memory was good–and he arrived at the final Amen and opened his eyes. In the distance, looking down at them from the height of a tall tree, was a single rook, black as priests are dressed, and waiting for ...

“What?” Selden asked the bird.

And it cawed.

Large-Hearted Boy. Part Ten.

The widow led Selden to her own home, a ramshackle cabin with its covered cooking area just out the back door. It was here that the village priest lay.

The matron explained, “Fresh air’s good for Pater. And here I can keep an eye on the poor man.” She shook her head. “He’s nearly bent over with aches on a good day. He’s old, you know, Pater. I’m afraid for him.”

Selden understood why. As he approached the priest he could feel the man’s resignation. The fever and chills had exhausted him.

“I give him a portion of what I mash from willow bark every two or three hours,” Matron said. “And all he’ll have is a little honey for strength. He’s been asking for you ever since we heard you and the young one was close.”

News traveled fast, Selden thought. “Leave me with him,” Selden told Matron. “And send word to the young one that I’ll be here for some time, won’t you?” He had told Geoffrey to introduce himself to the student-candidate’s family and then find rooms for the night.

He took a seat next to the sick man and sat quietly. He prayed for a time and then simply cleared his mind and watched the twilight give way to night.

The village priest opened his eyes and struggled to take Selden’s hand. Selden made it easier for the old priest. He scooted his chair closer and took the old man’s hand into his own. He smiled and recited, “He is a priest forever. Let not this glory dim, Lord, this fervour fade. Always remember him whom Thou has made Thine own Anointed. Keep his heart from all the dust of earth apart, and in Thy teeming comfort ever be strength to his frailty.”

The elder priest tried to speak, but managed just a few words. “The boy,” he said. “We would have him for ourselves.”

“Don’t speak,” Selden told him. “I can hear just the same.”

“Of course, you can. Anoint me, won’t you? I have the oil here. It’s here somewhere.”

“Of course...”

“I have only one sin I’ve not confessed.” And without any formality, without the ritual, the old priest opened his heart to Selden.

And Selden felt the hurt. And he came to know that the priest was actually a bishop, one who left his office when his health began to fail, who had come to Cald Mere because he felt he had been called to it.

“And it’s been peaceful here, brother.”

“I am called Selden, Primus.”

“You teach numbers.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve come to see the boy.”

“Yes.”

“My sin is that I would have kept him here for us. I was selfish, but the boy’s parents had more sense. I would have named him myself, here, in tiny Cald Mere, hardly a spot on a map, but the parents had more sense.” The bishop still struggled with his selfishness. He admitted, “I’ve become as superstitious as the natives. The day the boy was named, our rookery emptied. All gone, but one bird, who waits for you.”

Selden struggled to understand. The bishop’s mind was a blur to him when it came to the bird. Did it speak to him? Did the bishop answer back? Was there really any bird at all?

“The boy has the gift,” the bishop told Selden.

“I understand.”

“And the boy has a fate.”

“Primus, don’t we all?”

“This boy has a destiny.”

Large-Hearted Boy. Part Nine.

Selden was surprised by his singing. What’s come over me?, he wondered. And why so morbid today?

And wasn’t that Geoffrey’s silhouette in the doorway? Has he heard me? Blast! The nerve of the boy to spy in on him, he thought. But his anger left as fast as it came. The boy’s thirsty. So am I. If he stands in the doorway, it’s only to suggest that a public house must be nearby.

Despite the master’s forgiveness, Geoffrey’s horse nudged the boy roughly, moved to the act at Selden’s suggestion. Selden smiled at his own joking and called to the boy. “Your horse is as impatient as you are.” The boy smiled, the master knew.

Selden stood, but before he left the choir, he lifted a number of the miserichords, to see the carvings that decorated the wood beneath the small perch. Whenever he traveled, he made a point of admiring the work of the anonymous craftsman who spent hours on these panels, panels that would rarely be seen. What delighted him most was that the scenes and figures portrayed under the seats were always profane. Never rude or unbecoming–well, sometimes the cravings were suggestive–the men and women depicted in the panels all went about their daily pursuits without knowing their God stared over their shoulders. They threshed, or ploughed, or even kissed under his mercy and, humorously, to Selden at least, under the hindquarters of a priest or brother. The miserichord where he had sat was his favorite. A cow turned her gaze toward the viewer. Behind her was a tumbled man and his milk pail. The cow looked almost as though she could smile.

“Pater,” Geoffrey called out loud. “You have a visitor.”

Selden looked toward the doorway and now saw two silhouettes. A short, squat figure struggled with her bonnet.

“Come in,” he bid her. “Blessings.”

“Blessings, Pater!” she shouted from the distance.

He saw her curtsy and felt her impatience and worry and watched as she came only a few feet closer, into the balanced light of the nave.

“Matron,” he said. The ample figure in his view heard it as a question.

“Aye, that I am. Though my espoused has been dead some ten years, Pater.” And she stated her business. Her alarm was growing. “Our priest, our village priest, he has a fever and I cannot keep it down, Pater. He sent me to you. He knew you were to come, so he told me, and sure enough, Pater, here you are and it’s a blessing, it is. Won’t you come to him?”

“Of course, Matron,” and he strode down the stone aisle. “Take me to him.”

Large-Hearted Boy. Part Eight.

Selden's voice was surprisingly strong, Geoffrey thought. The master hardly ever sang out at Chapter, or even Mass for that matter. And why so mournful a song? It was one the boy remembered his mother singing, the tune so bittersweet and lovely.

Man mei longe him lives wene,
ac ofte him liyet the wreinch;
fair weder ofte him went to rene,
an ferliche maket is blench
thar-vore, man, thu the bithench,
al sel valui the grene,
wela-wey Nis King ne Quene
that ne sel drinke of dethis drench.
Man, er thu falle of thi bench,
thu sinne aquench.