Read Online Flesh and Spirit by Carol Berg - Free Book Online

bakehouse.
    The place seemed inordinately quiet. Water dripped from roofs and gutters. A fat, cold splatter on my head made me even more grateful for my wool layers. In his unending quest for cleanliness, Brother Anselm had bade me shave my face and trim my tangled hair the previous day.
    Once we passed the bakehouse, the infirmary no longer blocked our view to the south. I shook loose of Gildas’s arm for a moment and stopped to savor the spectacle. Mists and smokes and occasional pools of pale sunlight drifted over the green, steep-sided valley and the river, a flat band of silver that looped around the abbey precincts. Beyond the sheen of the river, a field of barley rippled gently in the soft rain, as healthy a crop as I’d seen in five years. My throat tightened at the beauty of it, and my eyes filled with more than raindrops, which left me feeling a proper weakling fool. Since I’d left the nursery, I’d never wept but when I was drunk.
    “I’m assuming you’ve seen grain fields, tanneries, mills, and sheep, all those things we’d find in the outer courts and south of the river—the River Kay, this is. If Father Abbot judges your calling that of a lay brother—suitable for manual labor, rather than the more challenging studies of a choir monk—you’ll live out your days in those surrounds.”
    Ranks and privileges—even in a brotherhood. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Gildas offered me his shoulder again, but I shook my head and hobbled along beside him.
    As we rounded the corner of the garden, the monk walked faster as if to keep up with his thoughts. “The true peace of the monastic life is found in prayer and contemplation, study and scholarship. We don’t allow speech in the cloisters, library, or scriptorium, but sign to each other for necessary communication.”
    “Peace will be welcome,” I said, working to keep up with his brisk pace. “There’s little enough to be had in this world, and talking never seems to improve matters. Though truly, telling stories of an evening or singing chorus to a bard are fine pleasures…holy gifts…as well. I’ll wager you brothers come from everywhere and have much to share in that way—after all your studying and contemplating, of course.” Surely they talked of something besides gods and holy writs. Surely they talked. All this broody silence seemed unnatural.
    “Within the framework of our discipline, certainly we converse—some of us more, some less. Brother Infirmarian says you’ve traveled all over Navronne and are overflowing with curious tales. I’d like to hear of your experiences.”
    “No denying I’ve had restless feet…” My mind sorted through my spotted history like a washwoman picking through soiled and ragged linen. Sadly, I found little fit for display. Gildas wouldn’t be looking for adventures and oddments like those Jullian teased out of me on his daily visits. “I followed King Eodward all the way to the Caurean shores. After he died, I hired out on the docks in Trimori for a while, but the Caurean storms frosted my bones worse than Ardran winter. I think the Adversary’s domain is surely ice, Brother Gildas. Not fire at all. Is that false doctrine? The holy writs say the wicked will burn, and I’ve found that cold burns worse than fire.”
    “I’ve not heard that point argued,” he said. Though he knit his solid brow, his face was not so sober. “Perhaps Brother Sebastian will pursue the question in your studies. Go on. Tell me more.”
    “Well, I moved on to Savil and apprenticed to a tanner—honest work, but the stink is poison to a tender stomach such as mine…”
    At the far end of the walk a plain rectangular building stretched off to our left. On the littered muddy ground behind it, three lay brothers, their gray scapulars tucked up in their belts, wrestled the trunk of a sturdy oak from a donkey dray. Another of the brethren was shifting a pile of new-split logs to the wood stores stacked neatly in the