The Witch's Brat Read online

  ‘More than two years, Father.’

  ‘So long? For two years we have been blind and foolish, Brother Eustace, we have made no use of this boy’s special skills. We have not even troubled to find out that he had any.’

  ‘And has he?’ Brother Eustace raised his brows.

  ‘He knows nearly as much about the growing of physic herbs as Brother John himself, and he knows your own cure for colic; and’ – a gentle amusement flickered in the Precentor’s voice – ‘some that I greatly doubt if you have ever used at all.’

  ‘That, I can well believe,’ the Infirmarer said.

  But the Precentor was not to be turned aside from his idea, even by Brother John who was small and peppery and not at all sure that he wanted a new assistant pulling up his most cherished herbs for weeds. And within a few days, Lovel had ceased to be at everybody’s beck and call, and had become Brother John’s helper in the physic garden, with a place of his own in the life of the Monastery at last.

  Eight hundred years ago, most plants counted as herbs and had their uses of one kind or another, and so the physic garden was a garden of flowers, and beautiful accordingly, though the flowers were not grown for beauty. Tall, speckle-throated foxgloves stood in the shade of an old elder tree; periwinkle and Herb Robert for cleansing wounds shared a bed with the white opium poppy brought back to England by the first Crusaders. Rosemary was there for headaches, and scabius and blue crane’s-bill; the white-starred garlic; and celandines for sore eyes, and camomile to bring quiet sleep; and the white or purple comfrey that helps broken bones to knit.

  Lovel was happy working there, away from the rush and bustle of the kitchens and the outer court. He had time to go on learning to read; and life was much more peaceful, except, just occasionally, like the time when he brought in and planted a root of yarrow, which his grandmother had always said was a better wound-wort even than dittany. Brother John said that yarrow belonged to the Devil, and that it was easy to see what Lovel’s grandmother had been; and pulled up the root and threw it at his head. That night Lovel dreamed, as he had not done for a long time, of the faces that were all eyes and mouths, and the stones whistling round his ears.

  But after a while, he and Brother John began to understand each other well enough. And so he went on working most of his time in the physic garden, and learning about the herbs that he tended from the great book in the library. And presently, little fat Brother Peter, and even Brother Eustace, the Father Infirmarer himself, began to call him into the Infirmary still-room to do the jobs that used up time without skill, and yet could not be left to anybody who did not know what they were doing; chopping up roots, pounding leaves in a mortar, watching strange mixtures boil and taking them off the fire at the right moment. There was always plenty of such work to do, for Brother Eustace doctored not only the Brethren and the Monastery servants but also folk from all the country round.

  And all the while, though he was not properly aware of it, the old wisdom and the old skills that were in him from his grandmother were waking more and more; the green fingers that could coax a plant to flourish and give its best; the queer power of the hands on sick or hurt bodies.

  About a year after he went to work in the physic garden, Lovel had his first patient.

  He was hoeing weeds, by himself because Brother John, with the rest of the monks, was at Vespers. Faintly, through the thick walls of the church, he could hear their chanting voices as he worked. From the outer court came the clip-clop of horses’ hooves and the rattle of cart-wheels – that would be the first load of hay for the great lofts over the stables; the May cut that smells the sweetest and gives the best fodder. The sunlit, longshadowed peace of the early summer evening was scattered by a shower of excited barks, and Lovel grinned to himself as he hoed carefully round the roots of a rosemary bush. Valiant was after the stable cat again! But almost in the same instant the barking changed to an agonized yelping, and there was a shout and flurry of voices. Lovel dropped the hoe and headed at a limping run for the little door in the high wall, almost hidden by a buttress of the church, dragged it open and stumbled out into the great forecourt.

  The hay-cart stood in the middle of the open space, with the horse backing and fidgeting uneasily in the shafts; a little group of men were gathered beside it, and in their midst, Valiant, yelping and yelping in pain and bewilderment, was trying to struggle up on three legs.

  Harding had come running from the stables, and people were talking all at once: ‘Ran right under the wheels!’ – ‘Always did say he’d chase that cat once too often.’

  And the loudest voice of all was Jehan’s, saying, ‘It’s broken. Best knock him on the head and be done with it.’

  Lovel saw the look on their faces – the look on Harding’s face above all – and shouted, ‘No! Wait!’ And next moment he was in the midst of the group, pushing his way through to where Valiant, quiet now, crouched on three legs with his head distressfully down, and his right foreleg half tucked up at a queer unnatural angle. ‘Hold him for me, Harding,’ he said; and got down awkwardly on to his sound knee and held out a reassuring hand, ‘Easy, boy. Easy, Valiant, let me look.’

  The old man-at-arms squatted down without a word and drew the dog against his knees; and Lovel fondled the great drooping head a moment, then drew his hand down over neck and shoulder to the injured foreleg. The bystanders glanced at each other, grinning, or shrugged, or looked on with surprised interest at the way Humpy had taken command of the situation, just as though he were one of the Brothers, with the right to order them about.

  ‘Look out, he’ll bite,’ somebody said.

  ‘He won’t bite me. He’s got too much sense, and he knows I’m trying to help him.’ Lovel’s hands were on the place now; he could feel the break in the bone. Valiant was shuddering from head to tail, but he made no sound, and certainly no attempt to snap. Lovel went on feeling very carefully and gently at the broken bone, and talking reassuringly to Valiant all the time. He seemed to be seeing with his hands as well as feeling; it was all very odd. After a few moments he looked up at Harding, ‘It’s a clean break. If we could get the ends to stay together and keep it straight long enough it ought to mend.’

  The weatherbeaten face of the old man-at-arms was wretched, and torn with doubt. ‘Can we do that? I’d not want the old lad to suffer, and all to no good in the end.’

  Lovel was silent a moment. He had to decide, with the dog’s beautiful amber-brown eyes on his face, and warm wet tongue suddenly curling out to lick his hand, whether he could really make the broken leg mend properly; or whether it would be kinder if Harding were to use his knife now, and make it all over for Valiant without any more pain. ‘I think so,’ he said at last. ‘I’m sure it’s worth trying, even if it hurts him quite a lot. Please, Harding, let me try.’

  Though he did not yet know it himself, there was a strange new authority in him, that had come the moment he touched the injured dog; the authority of someone doing their own job and knowing exactly what they are doing.

  Harding looked down at his dog and then up again at the boy, and nodded. ‘Tell me what you’d have me do.’

  ‘Go on holding him like that so that he can’t move about,’ Lovel said; and then to the knot of bystanders, ‘I’ll need some straight sticks, and rags – plenty of rags, torn into strips.’ And the surprising new authority was in his voice too.

  Somebody laughed, and said, ‘Hark to the Father Infirmarer!’ But the sticks and a handful of rags were brought all the same. He chose the three best bits of wood for his purpose, thin but strong, and cut them to the length he wanted with somebody’s knife; then while Harding supported the broken foreleg, he began to bind them on with the strips of rag so that they held the break splinted and secure. He had to be very careful of the tension, knowing that if he made the binding too tight, Valiant’s paw would die because the life could not get through to it; and if he made it too loose, the break would not be held rigid enough and the bones would not knit togeth
er. He was concentrating so hard, frowning and biting his tongue, that he lost all awareness of the little group standing round, and did not even notice that when Vespers ended, two or three of the Brothers came out from the west door of the church to see what the disturbance had been about, and that one of them remained behind for a short while, watching him, after the others had gone back into the cloisters.

  When the last knot was tied, Lovel sat back on his heel and thrust the hair out of his eyes, and looked about him at the outside world that he had just remembered.

  He said, ‘I think that’ll hold, so long as we can keep him from biting at the rags. If I go now I can maybe get word with the Father Infirmarer before he goes to refectory, and ask for some comfrey, and we’ll give it to him in warm milk.’

  Valiant loved milk, and never got any unless he stole a drink from the pail when he hoped nobody was looking. Almost anything, Lovel reckoned, could be got down him if it was mixed with milk.

  Harding nodded. ‘I’ll get him back to the stable; he’ll be best in his own corner.’

  Lovel found Brother Peter in the Infirmary still-room, measuring out a syrup for Brother Godwyne’s cough, and burst out with his request.

  ‘Broken foreleg, eh,’ said Brother Peter, setting down the measuring glass. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, very sorry. A good friendly beast, yes, yes, and behaved as reverendly as any Christian, the time he got into the church. Comfrey, yes, I think we might spare—’

  Brother Eustace’s dry voice sounded from the inner doorway, ‘Brother Peter, may I remind you that nothing is dispensed from the Infirmary still-room without my leave?’

  ‘Yes, yes – of course I would have asked you before –’ Brother Peter began guiltily, and his voice trailed away, as the dry one went on.

  ‘The remedies on these shelves are for the healing of men and women and children, not for brute beasts, no matter how Christianly they behave themselves in church after they have chased the stable cat half-way up the rood screen!’

  ‘But we have plenty of the infusion, Brother Eustace; don’t you think –’

  ‘That is beside the point,’ said Brother Eustace, and his voice took on the familiar edge of exasperation. ‘It’s not even as though the animal was a working dog; it’s a useless creature, anyway.’

  Lovel suddenly heard a voice that did not seem to be quite his own, saying, ‘Father Infirmarer, you said that about me, once, but I reckon you’ve found me useful enough to you these past months.’

  There was a small sharp silence. Brother Peter watched in dismay as Lovel and the infirmarer stood looking at each other. Lovel was feeling rather sick, and his heart was racing. There was a little frown between Brother Eustace’s eyes. ‘Did I?’ he said at last. ‘If so, I do not think that you were meant to hear it, and I am sorry. There remains the question of Harding’s dog. It is not easy to make a broken bone knit properly in its true position; did you think that it might have been kinder to let Harding finish the animal’s suffering at once?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lovel said; and still the voice did not quite belong to him. ‘I thought.’

  ‘And are you sure that you did not merely do what you wanted to do?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lovel said again. ‘I could feel the way the bone was broken and how it ought to go together again.’

  ‘You have, of course, a vast experience in such matters.’

  Lovel shook his head, trying to explain, ‘I felt it.’

  There was another silence, and then Brother Eustace said, ‘Well, you were certainly splinting it in an extremely competent manner.’

  Lovel’s eyes widened, ‘You saw?’

  ‘I watched you for some time. But you were too deeply occupied to notice anything apart from what you were doing.’ Suddenly the Infirmarer seemed to make up his mind. He turned to the stocked shelves and took down a jar with a wooden stopper. ‘There should be enough of the infusion left in this jar to do all you need. I would tell you to leave the splints on until this day month, but doubtless you know that already. When you propose to take them off, will you let me know? I should like to be present.’

  That night, long after the other monastery servants were asleep, Lovel lay wide awake on his pallet bed at the far end of the dormitory. He felt very much older than when he woke up that morning; and as though something strange and tremendous and rather frightening had happened to him, changing him into a slightly different person, so that he could never go back to being exactly the Lovel he had been before.

  6

  The Novice

  KNEELING IN THE stable straw, with the old man-at-arms holding Valiant between his knees, and Brother Eustace looking on from the doorway, Lovel felt sick and his fingers seemed made of wood. The big dog had been trotting around, dot-and-go-one on three legs almost from the first, and in the past week he had even begun putting the broken foreleg to the ground. But now the month was up; and how would it be when the splints were off? He took up Harding’s knife that was lying ready, and began to cut the binding rags. It would be hopless to try to untie them, they were matted solid with dirt long ago.

  The last knot parted; and Lovel drew the bits of wood away, and began to feel the dog’s foreleg, while Valiant looked up into his face, whimpering and wagging his tail. He could feel the place where the break had been, the bone a little thickened over the mend; but the join was straight and true. He felt Valiant lick his thumb, and opened his eyes – he had not even known when he shut them, so that nothing should interfere with the feeling that was like another kind of sight in his hands. ‘Up, boy!’

  Valiant half obeyed, then checked, missing the familiar support of the splint, and looked at him inquiringly.

  ‘Up!’ Lovel said again. ‘Up, boy! Up, Valiant!’

  He struggled up himself, and moved backwards a few steps, and whistled as well as he could for the dryness of his mouth. ‘Come?’ And with a protesting whine, Valiant got up. Lovel moved back and whistled again: and Valiant put his right forepaw uncertainly to the ground; one step, two, quite steadily, and then tucked it up again and finished the journey on three legs, to thrust his muzzle into Lovel’s hand.

  A sickening sense of loss and failure rose in Lovel; bewilderment too; everything had seemed going so well, for those first few steps. Then beside him, Brother Eustace stooped and felt the dog’s foreleg with a practised hand. ‘It’s perfectly sound. That’s no more than habit.’

  The old man-at-arms nodded, ‘Likely he’ll go on three legs to the end of his days whenever he wants sympathy or hopes ’twill get him off a hiding.’ He was grinning with relief all over his red, rough-hewn face; he even forgot the respect due to one of the Brethren. ‘You couldn’t have done much better nor that yourself, eh, Father Infirmarer?’

  Brother Eustace looked up from his examination of Valiant’s leg, his face as bleak and his voice as cool and dry as ever. ‘No, I believe I could not,’ he said.

  Lovel turned away from them both, and from Valiant, who had sat down to lick his paw, and went across to the church.

  In after years, Lovel was never quite sure how or when the idea had started, that he should enter the Order. Whether it was after Valiant, or not until the sickness broke out among the Brothers the following spring, and he found himself working in the Infirmary day and night with the Father Infirmarer and Brother Peter.

  Probably something would have been said to him about it sooner; but late in 1121, a great sorrow fell upon all England. For four years past – almost ever since the night that Rahere had lodged in the Nazareth Chamber – the King had been overseas, and with him Prince William his heir; for the boy had received Normandy from King Louis of France, on condition of doing him homage for it; and there had been many things to arrange and watch over. But at last all was in order, and a little before Christmas Henry sailed for England, weighing anchor from Barfleur at dusk, while Prince William followed in another ship a few hours later, and many of the young people of the Court, who were his friends and boon-companions, with him. But
the second ship, sailing after dark, struck a rock and broke up. Only one man got ashore from the wreck, and he was not the Prince.

  Throughout England there was grief and mourning, for people had hoped great things of the King’s son when his time came to rule them; and hardly a great house in the kingdom but had lost son or brother, friend or kinsman. And in New Minster as in every church and cathedral throughout the land, as the weeks turned into months and the time of mourning went by, Solemn Mass followed Solemn Mass for the souls of the young Prince and his friends, whose bodies had never been found. And all other affairs were laid aside.

  So it was late summer and Lovel was almost eighteen that the Abbot sent for him and suggested that he should take his vows and become one of the Brethren.

  Standing in the Abbot’s parlour before the lean, hawk-nosed man who always looked as though he should have been wearing mail rather than the black habit of the Benedictines, Lovel stammered a little. ‘Father Abbot, I – I had not thought to enter the Order.’

  ‘Never once?’ said the Abbot.

  ‘It has – drifted into my head once or twice – and out again. I never really thought about it. I am a Monastery servant, and well enough content with that.’

  ‘We have done more than think about it, my son; we have discussed your case in Chapter. Brother Eustace, Brother Peter, and Brother Anselm all feel that you would do well.’

  ‘Brother Eustace!’ Lovel said, startled.

  ‘It was Brother Eustace who brought the matter up. I think,’ the Abbot smiled, ‘that he would like to be able to count on more help in the Infirmary. However, that is not in itself perhaps the best of reasons for entering a religious Order.’

  So the Father Abbot talked to Lovel of the joys of a life lived entirely for God; and then bade him go away and think. And Lovel went away and thought; but not quite as the Father Abbot had intended.

  He knew that the gift of healing was in him from his grandmother; he felt it every time he touched anything that was sick or in pain. He knew that he would make a good physician. It was the one thing he would ever do well, and the one thing he wanted to do; and though there were physicians outside the church, it cost money to get one to take you as his boy and teach you all his skills; and more money to set yourself up afterwards. For a poor man who wanted to heal the sick, so far as he knew, the Church was the only way. Also – but this he did not admit even to himself – the thought of leaving the Monastery and going out into the world again frightened him. The world had not been over-kind to him the last time he was in it. Since then he had been more than six years within the sheltering walls of New Minster; and they had come to mean sanctuary to him, especially in these later years in the physic garden and the Infirmary; even if sometimes they also seemed a little like the walls of a prison.