The Oblate's Confession (7 page)

“Winwæd,” said the abbot.

I tried to indicate attentiveness with my back.

“Stand up and look at me when I’m talking to you.”

I looked. It was Father Abbot who had moved. He was sitting on the bed now.

“Go ahead,” he said, nodding. “You have permission.”

I stood up.

“Now look at me. I told you I wanted you to look at me.”

I looked. Father’s eyes were blue.

“Good. That’s good. Now, will you listen to me?”

I nodded,
Yes.

“Your life and the life of everyone in this monastery may depend upon it. Do you understand?”

Everyone.

“Fine. Now you tell him Father Prior, I’m tired of your ridiculous language.”

Father Dagan smiled as if Father Abbot had said something amusing. He turned, looked out the window, eyes losing their color to the light. “What I’m going to tell you about took place a long time ago. Before you were born, before this building was built, before Father Abbot even came to Redestone....” Father stopped, looked back at me—eyes brown again, bright, commanding. “You must understand, this was a different place then. Different. It was Father Abbot who built the Redestone we know—the terrace, the refectory, the dortoir. But there was a time before you were born, before Father Abbot, when these things weren’t here. In those days there was only the church and even it was smaller. Of course it looked big. I mean from down in the fields it looked big. Because of the ridge. In those days a ridge extended out from the base of the mountain a little way into the fields and our church sat up on its lower end. So it could look big. From down in the village it looked quite large. But it wasn’t. Not really. Just a simple structure built of sticks and mud. We monks lived in a cave at the base of the ridge.”

Father looked back out the window as if expecting to see the cave, that long-ago time. “Of course it’s gone now, the ridge I mean, buried, like Oslac and Cuthwine, beneath our garth. Seven times we climbed that ridge, seven times we climbed back down; every day: year-in, year-out. No dortoir, no refectory, no necessarium.... It’s hard to believe now.
But we weren't barbarians
.” He looked at me. “You mustn’t think we were barbarians.”

I didn’t.

“We were monks.
Monks.
Life was hard but we kept our rule: we worked, we prayed. Every day. And on the sabbath we received our Lord. Those were good men back then, good men. We just didn’t have Father Agatho yet, that’s all.”

I nodded and Father Abbot nodded with me. I had no idea
what Father Dagan was talking about.

“Then Penda came.” Father’s voice grew soft. “Have you heard of Penda? Did your mother frighten you with tales of Penda?”

The suggestion of a fragrance, like flowers, and a face, like the Virgin’s. I shook my head. No, no I couldn’t remember any stories.

“Well she should have. Penda was a Mercian and a pagan, the cruelest, most wicked pagan of them all, and he joined forces with the Cumbrogi—not much better—to destroy our land. Many a morning we awakened to smoke on the horizon and, once, women and children spilling from the South Wood like frightened deer. Folian was abbot in those days, and Folian was afraid of Penda. He asked one of his monks, a man called Gwynedd, to climb Modra nect, keep watch from Dacca’s crag. You know the crag?”

I nodded, amazed to discover there had been an abbot before Father Abbot.

“Yes, good. But it’s different now. In those days it was an evil place, covered with runes and depictions of vile practices. Father Gwynedd was afraid of it. But he was a good monk. He climbed to Dacca’s crag because his abbot told him to; but he was afraid.” Father looked at me. “You know, when you leave the cloister you are entirely on your own. No one keeps you safe; no one cares about you; you have no friends. The monks here at Redestone are more than teachers and masters, Winwæd, we are your family. But out there....” Father’s eyes grew pale again as he looked toward the window. “Well.... And of course it was worse in those days, pagans everywhere, fighting, killing. Not that it’s much better now. Father’s right to send out his priests; the hill people remain a proud and stubborn race. But in those days they were also bold; we sometimes found dogs hanging from the rafters in our church, mare’s blood upon the door. Gwynedd’s fear was justified. Not only had the abbot sent him to live by himself in a forest full of heathen, but he had sent him to live upon one of their holiest sites, to sleep, eat, and relieve himself upon its ground. The first nights he must have had no rest at all. I remember, when the wind
blew right, you could hear him up there, chanting, praying, beseeching God to protect him. It made everyone uneasy. All of us. Knowing he was up there, a goat staked out for wolves. But then a day came when we realized that, with or without the wind, we had not heard Gwynedd for some time. Of course we knew what had happened; something had killed him—pagan or wild animal, it made little difference, the result would be the same. So Abbot Folian sent a party up to retrieve the body. But the brothers came back empty-handed. Nothing was wrong, they said, Gwynedd was still alive. He had received them properly—washed their feet, begged for their prayers—but he had seemed just as pleased—content even—when they left. Very strange.” Father paused to think about this. He shook his head. “Of course no one knew what it meant. Then, well, time passed, and, after a while, it became obvious Penda wasn’t going to attack us that year. We’ve always been isolated up here, and there was no furnace then, no reason for him to take an interest in us.” Father Dagan stopped, glanced over at Father Abbot to make sure it was all right for him to continue. But Father Abbot wasn’t looking at Father Dagan just then, he was looking at the floor.

For a moment no one said anything. From the window came the sound of someone chopping wood. Then, as if Father Abbot had said it was all right, Father Dagan went on. “But I think it was more than our isolation that saved us; I think it was prayer. Prayer protected us then, and it will protect us now.”

Father Abbot nodded at the floor. In church he sometimes called prayer “our buckler and shield.”

Father Prior went on. “So, once it became obvious that Redestone was safe, Father Gwynedd came back down to the monastery. Of course everyone was glad to see him—as we are glad to see any brother after a long absence—and Gwynedd was glad to see us. But, after a while, another strange thing happened. Father Gwynedd began to miss Dacca’s crag. I know it sounds incredible, to think that anyone could miss so wild and desolate a place, but Father did. And when we asked him why, he said that it was
because
it was wild and desolate.”

Again Father stopped, seemed to give thought to what he had said. “You know he never even lit a fire. Of course in part this was because fire was the signal he had agreed upon with Folian, but he was afraid too. Who knew what fire might attract? Kinsman or not, the Cumbrogi would have made a meal of him. And in those days our side of the mountain was just as bad as the other. But Father liked it. Or at least he missed it. The loneliness, the lack of companionship. For the first time in his life he had placed his trust entirely in God. Entirely in God. There was no one else. No friend, no brother. But he said that was good for him, the poverty, that it forced him to abandon all attachments, to turn his face toward his Maker alone.”

Father Dagan paused, shook his head. “Lying on the ground at night, afraid to sleep, afraid to even close your eyes; every sound a footfall, every noise the approach of...something. And so alone.” Father looked at me. “If you cried out when they came for you they would find that amusing, entertaining, a proof of weakness. But otherwise there would be no one. No one to hold your hand. No one to kiss you good-bye. We all must die of course, but to die alone, unloved.... Well, we all thought him mad. And he looked terrible—skeletal, sun-burned, his tonsure grown in. But he said he wanted to return. He said he wanted nothing more in life than to leave it, to be left, like Isaac, on the mountaintop, alone with God.”

“Careful Dagan.”

Father was as surprised as I.

“Lonely mountaintops, terrible odds.... Boys love that sort of thing.”

Father Prior looked back at me, surprise becoming astonishment. “Do you?” he asked.

I shook my head but Father wasn’t looking at me anymore. “First it was hermits and now it’s monks. Half the beggars out there claim to be displaced brothers, women clinging to them, children at their feet!” Father looked back at me. “Recite Chapter One.”

Here? In front of our lord abbot?

Father’s expression softened a little. “It will be all right, I’ll help.”

I looked over at Father Abbot and he looked back at me so I assumed custody of the eyes. For a while no one said anything and my ears grew warm. Finally, hardly believing it myself, I began.

“Louder please.”

I glanced up and was horrified to see Father Dagan nodding, exchanges between abbots and oblates apparently a commonplace in his life.

I began again, my voice funny and distant but, I hoped, a little louder.

“The Holy Rule. ‘Chapter One. Of the Kinds or the Life of Monks.

“‘It is well known that there are four kinds of monks. The first kind is that of Cenobites, that is, the monastic, who live under a rule and an Abbot.

“‘The second kind is that of Anchorites, or Hermits, that is, of those who, no longer in the first fervor of their conversion, but taught by long monastic practice and the help of many brethren, have already learned to fight against the devil; and going forth from the rank of their brethren well trained for single combat in the desert, they are able, with the help of God, to cope single-handed without the help of others, against the vices of the flesh and evil thoughts.

"'But a third and most vile class of monks is that of Sarabaites, who have been tried by no rule under the hand of a master, as gold is tried in the fire; but, soft as lead, and still keeping faith with the world by their works, they are known to belie God by their tonsure. Living in twos and threes, or even singly, without a shepherd, enclosed, not in the Lord’s sheepfold, but in their own, the gratification of their desires is law unto them; because what they choose to do they call holy, but what they dislike they hold to be unlawful.

“‘But the fourth class of monks is that called Landlopers, who keep going their whole life long from one province to another, staying three or four days at a time in different cells as guests.

Always roving and never settled, they indulge their passions and the cravings of their appetite, and are in every way worse than the Sarabaites. It is better to pass all these over in silence than to speak of their most wretched life.

“‘Therefore, passing these over, let us go on with the help of God to lay down a rule for that most valiant kind of monks, the Cenobites.’”

At first nothing happened. Then, with care—and what seemed to me infinite wisdom—our lord abbot lowered his eyelids and permitted his head to drop ever so slightly forward. Father Prior was going on about cenobites, about how much better they were than other monks, but I didn’t care. Father Abbot had nodded;
he approved my recitation!

“And anchorites, don’t talk to me about anchorites! If half Northumbria’s hermits were as holy as they are revered, we should all be saved. Small wonder everyone wants to be one—all honor, no rule,
no work!
But where would we be if Father Abbot let every brother who wanted to, wander off to live by himself among the trees? Who would plow our fields, sing the office, take care of you?” Father looked at me as if it were my fault he couldn’t be a hermit, then looked back out the window. The chopping had stopped. Down by the peas I could hear someone encouraging an ox.

“The vow of stability is so important,” Father said, “so very important. And Abbot Folian was no fool. He may have been wrong about some things, but he knew the importance of vows. So he tested Gwynedd. He told him that, in a year’s time, if he still wished to live as a hermit upon Modra nect, the subject could be discussed. But until the year was up, it was not to be mentioned again. And Gwynedd didn’t mention it. Not once. Not even subtly.” Father looked at me. “You know, Winwæd, we don’t leave all our faults at the monastery gate.”

I nodded, it was one of Father’s favorite expressions.

“Acts of piety aren’t always done for the love of Christ. There are monks who will walk on their knees all day long for no other reason than to draw attention to themselves. But not Gwynedd.

No nettles beneath his woolens, no undue fasting—he lived as he had promised to live: simply, as a monk. It seems such an easy thing—the Rule to follow, your abbot to direct you—but it requires great humility. Many attempt it, few succeed. That Gwynedd did, told Father Abbot everything he needed to know about the man. When the year was up and Gwynedd admitted he did still long for the mountain, it was old Father Abbot himself that climbed up there with him, helped to put the place in order, prepare it for such a life.”

Father Prior paused, straightened a sleeve, began again. “To cleanse the site they fasted for three days, said many prayers, chanted day and night. On the fourth day they received the Host, broke their fast. It would have been a sad little celebration: Father Abbot unlikely to ever climb back up, Gwynedd forsworn from climbing down. Still, they did what they could I suppose— blessings would have been exchanged—final blessings in a sense—the kiss of peace, then the two would have parted. I don’t think they ever saw each other again.”