The Oblate's Confession (8 page)

Once more Father looked out the window. “The years have come and gone since Father Gwynedd took that vow, and he has spent every single one of them by himself. Not once has he sat at our table or sung with us in choir.” Father turned, looked at me. “But that doesn’t mean he goes without. Though one could say he abandoned Redestone, Redestone has not abandoned him. The fraternal vow works both ways, Winwæd. Just as you have been given in perpetuity to us, so we have been given in perpetuity to you. Like Christ, nothing—not illness, not distance, not even sin—can keep us from loving and protecting you. And Father Gwynedd. Regardless of his status upon Modra nect, he remains a member of this community. Though he may be a hermit, he is our hermit and, so long as he lives, we will visit and care for him. And pray for him.”

Father closed his eyes, nodded to himself. “Yes. Yes that is how I should say it. We pray for Gwynedd, just as he prays for us.” The eyes sprang open again. “You mustn’t think that because he is a hermit, Gwynedd’s prayers are more effective than ours.”

I didn’t.

Father’s eyes grew suspicious. “Because they aren’t. God honors all prayer, farmer’s or prophet’s. Did Christ prefer the rich man or the poor?”

I looked at Father Prior.

“Go ahead, you have permission.”

“The poor man.” Twice now I had spoken in front of my lord abbot.

“That’s right,” said Father Prior happily, “and Father Gwynedd is rich in prayer.
Ora et labora
—you know what this means?”

I nodded.

“Prayer and work, the monk’s simple call; but Gwynedd’s work is his prayer. That’s all he does up there, day and night. But does that make his prayer any better than ours?”

I shook my head.

“It’s his craft, that’s all. Does God love the mason more than the cobbler because he builds a better wall?”

Of course not!

“And so it is with Gwynedd’s prayer, don’t let anyone tell you differently.”

I wouldn’t, the idea seemed suddenly disloyal.

“Good,” Father said, smiling as he did when I got my lessons right, “because simple people—people who don’t understand the meaning of ‘community’—can err in this way. They mistake the care we give our brother for evidence of his importance. He is excused from Chapter and allowed to live on his own. Though he neither sows nor reaps, he eats: we bring him food; in their eyes, we wait upon him. Simple people—rustics, fools—see this as proof the man is special. They think he is a holy man, some kind of saint.” Father looked at me. “Foolishness, vanity. Everyone wants to think they know a saint, it makes them feel important. But Gwynedd is no more likely to be a saint than you or I. You are to treat him with the same respect you owe everyone; nothing more. There is nothing special about Father Gwynedd.”

I looked at Father Prior. Was I to meet the hermit?

“Tell him Dagan.” Father Abbot sounded impatient. “You

make everything so complicated.”

Father Prior assumed custody of the eyes.

Father Abbot shrugged, looked back at me. “Ælfhelm’s dead. You know that, you buried him. He was Gwynedd’s servant. Once a week on the Sabbath he visited the hermit, brought him supplies, prayer requests, what-have-you.... Since his death, we’ve sent Tatwine.” Father hesitated. His expression grew soft. “But I can’t send Tatwine anymore, you understand? I need him. I need him for the planting.”

Oh yes, I understood. The eyebrows, the changed voice, the way Father leaned toward me as he spoke. Things weren’t good. Things were so bad Father didn’t have enough people to do all the work that needed being done. It made me angry and it made me sad. I wanted to help. I wanted very much to do something, anything, to show Father how much I appreciated his speaking to me, how much I loved him for talking to me, to me a mere oblate, to show him that I understood, yes I knew, how deeply he cared for Redestone, how much he loved us all. I smiled at him,
Yes, Father,

whatever you wish, I, Winwæd, shall accomplish it for you.

“Good,” said Father Abbot, smiling himself now, “because from now on I am sending you in Tatwine’s place. Tomorrow morning, after Prime, you will climb to Dacca’s crag.”

The beggars must already have begun to climb out of the Far Wood by the time Brother Tatwine and I set off, for their figures hover around my memory of that morning like the remains of some strange ground fog: gray, tattered, fading in and out among the trees. I think I also remember (though you could tell me this was the memory of a dream and I would not be surprised) crossing over Wilfrid’s bridge and entering the wood for the first time: one moment walking in light upon familiar ground and the next, darkness, the air itself turned cold as the wood breathed upon us. It was this, as I remember it, that most impressed me that morning, the separateness of the wood. Everything I knew of life I knew from the abbey—its peace, its order, its goodness. But the wood stood apart from Redestone, had been defeated to make way for

Redestone, and now I entered it. On my own two feet I walked into a place whose sign was gloom and damp, a place which said to my senses again and again:
I
am different from all you know. I stand apart from sun and field and all that is right in an otherwise dangerous world. I am chaos. I am death. Welcome.

For most of the morning we climbed without stopping, Tatwine walking so fast I was afraid he would leave me behind. At one point I remember our path followed the dry bed of what had once clearly been a great torrent, and I expected at any moment to be washed away upon the flood. Later still, the way became so steep we had to climb on all fours like horses, the pull of the world behind us palpable upon our backs. The bell for Terce, when, finally, it stopped our climb, frightened rather than pleased me. I would have preferred not to have heard it at all than to have heard the frail distant thing it had become. Surely it was too far away now to ever again shake me from sleep, call me to the table, save me from the fields. I can remember thinking we must have climbed too far too fast, that Tatwine had hurried us right past

Dacca’s crag, that now, surely, we stood upon the very summit of the world.

But of course we didn’t. Though we were high up. I later came to know the place well, passed it many times on my way to and from the hermit’s. The path there crosses a steep slope of brittle, slate-like rock. When you walk on it, this rock makes a sort of crunching noise underfoot, and, every now and then, pieces of it break off and slither away down the mountain. The path itself is a result of this weakness, a liver-colored line of broken bits of rock worn out of the lighter ochre of the slope. A species of pine— stunted, windblown—grows on both sides of the path, each of the trees clinging to its spot with roots that resemble small desperate arms. Normally I suppose Tatwine would have moved a little further on, chosen a place more suitable to our purpose, but on this occasion he must have wanted to impress upon me the importance of the office, that, even this far from Redestone, and regardless of circumstance, a brother was expected to hold to the Rule.

Carefully, I lowered myself onto the reddish-brown margins of the path. The surface, a mixture of dead pine needles and broken bits of rock, made a sound when I sat upon it. Before me, the slope fell away until I couldn’t see it any more; beyond this, the tops of tall trees, and, beyond these, the valley itself, a great green waste of trees that, like a flood, fanned out mindless and indifferent to the horizon. Redestone was nowhere to be seen. The Me-olch was nowhere to be seen. The bell had stopped ringing.

Having disposed of his scrip, Brother Tatwine turned slowly around, his body leaning in toward the mountain. Once he was facing me, his look of concentration changed to one of horror. “We are about,” he said, in the first words I had ever heard him speak, “to address God.”

I stood up again.

Neither of us had a great gift for song and, winded as we were, we must have presented a poor image there on the mountain that day, singing back and forth at each other like two men having an argument. Still, as we sang, the power of the chant began to have its way with me:

Who else is God but Yahweh, who else a rock save our God?

This God who girds me with strength and makes my way without blame,

who makes my feet like the hind’s and holds me from falling on the heights, who trains my hands for battle, my arms to bend a bow of bronze.

You give me your saving shield (your right hand upholds me), with care you train me, wide room you make for my steps under me, my feet have never faltered.

I pursue my enemies and overtake them, nor turn back till an end is made of them;

I strike them down, and they cannot rise, they fall, they are under my feet.

You have girt me with strength for the fight, bent down my assailants beneath me, made my enemies turn their backs to me; and those who hate me I destroy.

They cry out, there is no one to save, to Yahweh, but there is no reply;

I crush them fine as dust before the wind, trample them like the mud of the streets.

 

Of course I knew it was spiritual enemies the Psalmist writes of here, but there on the mountain that morning the demons I imagined had more heft to them than that: I slew rim-walkers with my chant—Cumbrogi and Mercian, beggar and wolf, these were the beasts that fell before my sword. I liked these songs, I liked the
feel of them, the crunch of them beneath my feet.

And then, in an instant, all the chant’s courage drained from me: Brother Tatwine suggested I should close Terce.

Of course he must have thought he was doing me a favor, must have thought he was bestowing a great honor on me, yet the very idea took my breath away. Still, what choice did I have? A monk, a solemnly-professed monk, had given me a direct order.

Choosing for my benediction the one prayer I knew I could get through without error, I began, “Great and beneficent God, hear me. Bless Ceolwulf, companion and gesith of Oswiu. Give him rings to bestow and a strong right arm. Make his animals fecund, his fields fertile. Grant him victories and long life. Furnish him with sons, great God, grant him offspring to crowd the borders. And give him fame that his sons and companions might sing the name of Ceolwulf and recall his adventures for generations to come.

“Great and beneficent God, hear me. Bless Oswiu, ring-giver, ruler of all the land north of the Umber, rightful lord of Mercia, warrior among warriors, leader of men. Grant him victories and treasure, make him generous, Lord, that his name and the story of his deeds may have many tellings, his companions good reason to sing his praise. Fill his hall with drink, good food, happiness; let the sounds of harp and laughter ring in that place. Give him long life, God, for his followers would miss his voice as they do those of the great heroes long gone.

“Grant these gifts, good and generous God, in the name of Your Son, Jesus the Christ, Most Valiant of Warriors, Prince of the Sky.”

Tatwine was looking at me in a way I didn’t like. “Does Father Abbot know you pray such a prayer, that you pray for Oswiu?”

I nodded, unsure what I had done wrong.

Brother frowned, seemed to think about what I had said. Then he turned carefully, picked up his scrip, and began once more to make his way up the path. I hurried after him, puzzled and not a little afraid.

Had I lied? In my haste to respond to an elder, I had answered
without thinking. Of course Father Abbot knew my prayer of oblation, Father Abbot knew everything! But now, as I climbed along behind Tatwine, I wondered...Did he? A part of me had always thought Father Abbot the source of my prayer. Someone had taught it to me; it was too grand a thing for me to have made up on my own. And that was part of its beauty too—when I thought about it—the fact that it had been a gift, that someone had taken the time to create it for me—just for me—a special prayer, something I could repeat whenever it got too dark or too lonely and everyone else was asleep. It had to have been Father Abbot who gave it to me, who else? And if not Father Abbot, then surely Father Prior.