Communion, Chapter 12

Here's the next installment of The Communion of the Saint. Back to the 5th century.

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Chapter 12

     

      Despite the treacly decor and uncomfortable furniture, I hadn’t slept so well in weeks. Even the velvet portrait of Jesus seemed benign when I entered the living room to find Amphibalus contorted on the window sill, washing.

      “I dreamed about you,” she said in the morning over tea. A wheeze grated in her voice, the result, she said, of asthma. “I never had a best friend when I was a child. I dreamed that you were she.” She shuffled over to the sink with both our cups. “We’d best get ready; Thomas will be coming for you.”

      Christina was in the bath when the knocking started. We had ended the night chattering like school girls. When Christina had knelt at her prie-dieu, I hadn’t, for once, felt awkward. It seemed natural for that huge woman to pray, as natural as breathing.

      I had to laugh when I looked out the cottage door. The three of them stood as far apart as they could. The stone stoop was only a few feet wide, but the gulf that opened among Father Tom, Leslie Phelps, and Mrs. Fern was huge. Each mirrored the expression of the other—a stern determination mixed with distaste at the presence of the other two. I opened the door.

      “Good morning.” I stood aside. “Won’t you all come in. I’m afraid we’ve just put up the breakfast things, or else I’d offer you tea.”

      They sorted themselves out with difficulty. Leslie sniffed at the room, wrinkling her nose at Amphibalus, but keeping her silence. The cat stared back, clearly unimpressed. Mrs. Fern wore her sense of betrayal like a raincoat. Father Tom mainly looked uncomfortable, a pained expression on his face, as if the awkwardness among the three of them were his fault. Still, he managed to be the first to speak.

      “Where’s Christina?”

      “In the bath.” I could think of nothing to do to ease their embarrassment, which was just as well. Each of them deserved it. Saint Albans, I was reminded, was a small town. I hadn’t run into this kind of nosiness growing up in Philly, but I’d seen it in the college where I’d taught. It was delicious. I felt rejuvenated. “I’ll just let her know you’re here.”

      The bath was off the small cell where Christina normally slept. She’d insisted that I use her bed. She’d put fresh linens on it for me. I tapped at the door to the bathroom. She peeked out, steaming and fresh in her voluminous bathrobe.

      “They’re here—three of them.” I filled her in on the flood of shame filling her tiny living room. “I wouldn’t leave them alone too long together.”

      “Quite right. There’s no telling what could happen.” She ducked back into the bathroom.

      Her breath still whistled in her chest. I was beginning to worry about her. I stripped the covers, found fresh sheets in the bottom of the armoire, and remade the narrow bed. With my arrival Christina had had more trouble in her cottage overnight than she might normally see in a year; I wanted to ease the burden. My hospital corners weren’t perfect, but they were the best I could do. Besides, I couldn’t wait to hear what might happen in the front room.

      “She’ll be out in a moment.” I would have said “minute,” a few weeks before. The environment was beginning to work on me. I had done some acting in college—nothing serious, just extracurricular stuff. It had left me with the distressing tendency to mimic the accent of anyone I spent time with.

      “Are you packed?” Mrs. Fern clutched her keys, as if afraid they might be stolen.

      “I’m afraid I didn’t have anything to pack,” I said. “It all happened so quickly.”

      “You might have called.” Lady Phelps.

      “I—

      “She’d had a head injury, for the love of Christ!” Tom’s irritation broke through. “We did what we thought best. She has no one here.”

      “Hmph,” Mrs. Fern’s face soured.

      “I should think that I would be the first notified.” Leslie wrapped herself in the full haughtiness of her class. “I am her employer.”

      “More’s the pity.” Christina, wrapped in a purple and orange caftan, appeared at the bedroom door.

      Amphibalus jumped from the sill and rubbed against Leslie’s ankles. Leslie shuddered, but stood her ground.

      “Clio would be better off if you weren’t,” Christina continued.

      “It’s because of my work that she is here in the first place.”

      “It’s because of your work that my Henry dropped over and died,” Mrs. Fern said. All eyes turned to her.

      “I beg your pardon?” Leslie’s tone was mild, but her eyes shone hard as the flint of the cathedral. “Henry Fern, as I recall, was under treatment for the abuse of alcohol. It can hardly be—”

      “All the more reason you and your foreman should have taken him off the job.”

      Embarrassment draped us in awkward silence. None of us three onlookers wanted to be in the middle of this ancient fight.

      Father Tom cut in. “This is neither the time nor the place to rake up the past.” I was glad for his intercession, but I also wanted to know the story. Raking up the past was my business—though usually not the recent past.

      “Now, how are you feeling?” Tom turned his attention to me, a bit flushed from his intercession, but triumphant with the small victory he had won. I rather enjoyed his success; it gave him a look of strength.

      “Quite well, thank you.”

      “I checked on her several times during the night,” Christina said. “Never a problem. I think we can rule out a concussion.”

      I hadn’t noticed—sleeping the sleep of the ignorant, I suppose. Still, it was kind of her.

      “The doctor asked me to come back today for a quick check,” I said to Tom. “Could I prevail on you for one more performance as my chauffeur?”

      The protests of the two women died under Tom’s withering protectiveness. I promised Mrs. Fern that I would be back in her home for lunch and spend the afternoon resting, and Leslie Phelps that I would be on the job tomorrow. They left, after making me cross my heart and hope to die that I wasn’t still suffering from a concussion. I let Tom go out to the Morris Minor before turning back to Christina.

      “Thank you,” I said. “You’ve been more than kind. I was a stranger and you took me in, and you nursed me through the night. That’s two cardinal acts of mercy.”

      “Go ahead now.” She smiled, then began to laugh, her huge frame jiggling under the bright caftan. “This scene we just played paid me back many times over. And I’m late for my morning prayers.”

      “Pray for me,” I asked, before I could stop to think about it. “This whole business confuses me.”

      We embraced. I could feel her breath rumble deep in her chest. “You should get that taken care of.”

      “That wheeze? I’ve had it for years. It comes and goes, but I’m still here. Go on with you, now.” Christina bent; Amphibalus leapt to her arms.

      Then I was out the door and into Tom’s Minor, chugging along the narrow road.

     

* * *

     

      I made Tom take me back to the cathedral, if only for a moment, to look again into the chapter house where I’d had my “fall.” He stayed at my side while we were there, refusing to leave me alone.

      I found that I didn’t mind his protectiveness, that part of me welcomed it.

      “Are you still jealous?”

      “The edge has worn off,” he answered. We stood at the prie-dieu, where my vision had started the day before.

      “I’m glad you took care of me. If I had to go through all that”—I touched the kneeler—“it’s good that you were with me.”

      He nodded, preoccupied with his own problems, of which I knew little.

      Tom knelt at the prie-dieu and let his forehead touch his folded hands. His absolute lack of self-consciousness released a stream of tenderness in me. He looked vulnerable, as if by choice, while in his silent prayer; it made him stronger. Tom Dorcas found his God differently, without the awful struggles I insisted on.

      There was room at his side. I knelt, too, and pushed my fear to arm’s length.

      I closed my eyes, folded my hands, and prayed into the silence of the ancient stone, into the quiet of Tom’s soft breathing. At first, only words came, and I felt embarrassed, hypocritical. Nothing happened, and I was disappointed.

      I ran out of words. The quiet grew, but instead of being frightened, I felt something—maybe Tom’s calm presence, maybe something else: a shield, a shelter grew around me.

      Then I knew. Tom’s prayers were for me.

      He touched my hand. We stood, I a little unwilling.

      “Time for the world, again,” he said. “Are you ready?”

      The doctor was, blessedly, the same woman who had seen me the day before. She amputated Tom from my side with practiced ease and led me into the examination room. There, she went over me top to bottom.

      “One of the benefits of private care is that, if things aren’t too busy, we can spend the time we ought with our patients. How do you feel?”

      I took a moment to think about it. “Not bad at all. Private care?”

      “The abbey’s paying for your treatment, not National Health. It does make a difference. How is your headache?”

      “Gone.”

      She wielded her ophthalmoscope like a laser dagger and peered into my eyes. The bright light reminded me of something, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

      “Does that hurt?”

      “No. It reminded me—”

      “Of what?”

      But whatever the trace was, it vanished. I shook my head. “It’s gone, now.”

      With a clean bill of health and orders to spend the rest of the day doing nothing of importance, I reappeared in the waiting room. Tom was at the payment desk.

      “—to me at the abbey.” He brightened when he saw me. “All done?”

      “Quite.”

      “Ready for a rest, I imagine.”

      It didn’t figure to be restful back at Mrs. Fern’s house, at least not right away. There would be the initial scene to be got through.

      Mrs. Fern, though, surprised me. She put water on as I came through the door, shooed me upstairs to get into my warm, white bathrobe, and had the tea ready when I came back down. It was disarming to be met with a P. D. James mystery, a cuppa, and told that she had to be out for several hours and I wouldn’t be disturbed. She even unplugged the telephone before departing on whatever errand drew her out of the house.

      I sat for a while at the kitchen table, sipping tea and feeling comforted. Mrs. Fern had a disarming talent for nurture. I watched the sunlight, through the kitchen window, play on the spire of the abbey.

      Rested now?

      The voice was back. I almost didn’t mind.

      I forget the limitations of the flesh.

      I reached for my brooch. Reflexively, I carried it with me wherever I went, slipping it from purse to pocket without the necessity for thought. The rough, pitted surface reassured me. At least I wasn’t catapulted into some spectral version of past events. The kitchen stayed in place. The walls stood as solid as wood and plaster could make them.

      “What is it?” I asked.

      I felt that I should check on you.

      “Good of you,” I shot back. “I always enjoy your visits.”

      Sarcasm is wasted, dear one.

      Sarcasm is never wasted; it always makes me feel better, as if my wits are still working.

      That’s such a mortal thing to say.

      I would have given him such a look, if he’d been there. Besides, I didn’t say it.

      Jesus tells us that to think a thing is to do it.

      Do you mean that “lust in my heart” thing that got President what’s-his-name in such trouble?

      I swear to God that he nodded, even though I couldn’t see him. A wave of nodding swept through me.

      “You were pretty rough on me.”

      That was Bryn. She has a few raw edges.

      “Not you?”

      Why should it be? I’m not the only martyr around.

      “I’ve been with several of them recently,” I said. It was less weird to be talking to him than it had been. Either I was getting used to being crazy or something else was going on. I didn’t know which was worse.

      “I don’t guess I can go back to having a normal life.”

      What was so great about normality? he asked.

      “What happened to Bryn?”

      Would you like to see?

      “No—just tell me.”

      So he did. Bryn’s sister Ceil’s sight came back when Germanus touched her eyes and promised that the saint himself would heal her. But Ceil remained as spoiled and self-indulgent as ever. Bryn, after witnessing it, stayed a nun for the rest of her life, and lived to be part of another miracle.

      “What?”

      I should have known better than to ask.

      The brooch shimmered into newness again and flew from my hands to my white terry robe. I pinned it through the cloth, which itself changed as my fingers worked. The walls faded; I was smaller again, and again pale of skin. Germanus had sent me as one of a series of lookouts. I was camped in a tree at the edge of a large stand of woods, the last sentinel in a chain stretching along the old Roman road that ran up to Hadrian’s wall, far to the north. Spring had been busy, freshening the trees to give me cover.

      It was Good Friday.

      Da’ was now with Germanus and the main body of men who had come northward on the road. Months had gone by since the defeat of Merlin and the healing of Ceil—plenty of time for my Celtic brothers and sisters to start a legend about the brawny bishop from the continent, and for that tale to leach into the superstitious minds of the raiders, who were neither Christian nor civilized. I was present when Germanus explained his plan to Da’.

      “In battle, the Picts and Saxons are brave—none can compare to them. They love the fight itself, and, man to man, they are dangerous. If we had time to train our soldiers, we could defeat them, because this strength of theirs is their weakness: they are undisciplined, more interested in glory and plunder than in sound tactics. But there is no time.”

      Da’s scouts had reported back. The raiders who killed and tortured Ma’ and frightened Ceil into blindness were an advance party. The main group—an unruly mix of Saxon, Pict, and Irish barbarians—was heading south down the very road I was lookout on, aiming to split Britain down the middle from Hadrian’s wall to the channel. Thereafter, we would be easy pickings for them.

      The plan, Da’ explained, could work. Britain was no longer anything like a state. There was no government, no rule that held the Britons together. Vortigern, the erstwhile king whose mage Germanus had bested, was not obeyed when out of sight.

      Da’ had gone ahead, until Germanus could catch up, readying what men he could as soldiers, and I with him. Ceil stayed with the monks, useless on such a journey. I burst with pride when Germanus and Da’ agreed that I should go with the fighters. I fancied myself a young Boadicea, nun or no nun. Besides, I was only a novice.

      The legend did its work. Da’ re-gathered a force of hundreds. Drawn by the tales of Germanus’ miracles and his military reputation, they filled the glade when Germanus came from the south.

      It was spring, and the forest that hid them from casual view was a riot of fresh, new green.

      Germanus wasted no time. The army, such as it was, was anxious to see him. We had a desperate thirst for hope.

      Cunobelinus, the novice master, had been busy while Germanus and Da’ scouted for the enemy. I had been of some small help, talking to the women and the children who came with the men. When Germanus and Da’ rode back into camp on Good Friday, late in the day, Cuno had already led the prayers for the service, and, for the more impressionable of his soldier-students, it was a devastating time. Christ was dead and in the grave. The camp was silent and solemn.

      “No one challenged us,” Da’ complained.

      “I saw you,” I answered. “But I knew who it was. I followed you back, and you never saw me.” He gave me a look that closed my mouth. Da’ had forgotten how to smile. I stood at his side anyway, relieved that he was back safe from being near the barbarians.

      Germanus and Da’ insisted on walking the perimeter of the camp.

      “They are preoccupied,” Cuno said by way of explanation, concerning the would-be fighters gathered in the camp. He and I followed in the tracks of the two leaders like eager children, wanting them to approve what we had done. “They wait to be baptized tomorrow night. It’s a relief you’re back in time.”

      The bishop pulled his cloak tight against the evening’s chill, and stopped to stare at Cuno and me.

      “All of them?”

      “I believe so.” Cuno was grinning, proud, and so was I. “The women and children, too.”

      “There are so many,” Germanus said. “I never thought—”

      “Some were already of the faith,” I spoke up, unable to contain myself. “Especially among the women. They helped. A lot.”

      Germanus was shocked into silence. He looked around, as if seeing the world anew, interested in every detail of every thing within his sight. He grinned at Cuno and me. I knew that he was pleased, but Cuno could only smile weakly.

      “Did I do wrong?”

      “Wrong?” Germanus laughed. “Oh, no, friend. You have seen a miracle!” The bishop twirled around, a dancer who could not keep still. He would have burst if he did not caper and shout.

      “Wake up! Wake up!” he cried to the camp. “Don’t you see—it’s a miracle!”

      The rocks beneath the trees answered him in his own voice.

      “A miracle!” they echoed.

      Germanus stopped, as if struck by an arrow. I started to rush toward him, but Da’ held up his hand.

      “Listen,” the general commanded.

      “Listen,” said the earth.

      How can a girl hide when the very earth itself speaks to her? I was frightened, but paid attention to Da’ and Germanus. Da’s look of alarm matched my own, but he stared at his leader.

      Germanus took a few steps away and tried again. Nothing happened. A few steps more; the echo returned, but the tone was subtly different.

      The four of us scattered, the same thought impelling us through the narrow valley. I ran a dozen steps, stopped, and shouted. Nothing. A few steps more, another shout, answered this time by the echo of my voice, magnified, powerful, scary. It made me jump. Da’ laughed at me, and I laughed back. It was the first he had smiled since before the attack.

      We dashed madly about. Shouts and laughter filled the defile.

      By dawn, the four of us had mapped out the whole of the small valley of the encampment. We had already sent scouts out to the north, along the route the raiders would take, each nearer one within signaling distance of the further out. We would have continuous notice of the approach of the invaders.

      Saturday, the day before Easter, was spent in final preparations. The mixed force of Saxons, Picts, and Irish would attack without much discipline, expecting little resistance. Trip-lines, snares, and deadfalls lined with sharpened sticks were laid. At dusk came word that the invading force had pitched camp nearby and appeared ready to attack at dawn.

      Cuno brought the men, I the women and children, in small groups down to the stream that ran by the altar stone. There, in the dusk of Easter eve, Germanus baptized every one.

      Still wet from the font, each trooper was taken to a spot in the valley and told what to do when the attack came. Da’ went with each. “When the enemy appears, lie still, as if sleeping, or better, dead. When the time is right, Germanus will shout. When he does, follow his lead.”

      The night was long. There were many to lead to the font. I heard noises that did not come from our own people. Foreign eyes touched Cuno and me as we went about the business of bringing hundreds of Britons into the faith of Christ.

      To the superstitious Picts watching us from the forest, Cuno and I must have seemed Death’s messengers, Germanus Death himself. Finally, just before first light, we finished. I delivered my last soldier to his spot and returned to the altar. The women and children were out of sight. In spite of my Da’s protests, I stayed with the fighters. I couldn’t bring myself to miss this.

      “Now what?” Cuno said. The four of us huddled in a shadow by the altar stone. The sound of the brook masked our whispers. I hoped.

      “Now we wait,” Germanus answered, “and pray.”

      “Quietly,” Da’ added.

      Like all the others, I had a specific spot to wait in. The cool of the night, pleasant enough when I was moving around, turned to a deeper chill as I lay motionless on the ground, sleepless, trying to pray for my soul and for success. I shivered as the dew began to coalesce, then freeze on my hair and clothing. For the soldiers it was a second baptism. Each of the Britons would be glazed in white frost.

      I had not known that I could hear a shadow. The raiders moved among us. They stank. I could smell each one as he came near. I fought to stifle a wave of nausea, and did not know whether it was their stink or my fear that caused it, but I lay still, as ordered, waiting for the signal.

      At any moment, one of the raiders might poke a still body with his weapon, just to see if it was alive. As that thought occurred to me, the sound of a blade being unsheathed slithered through the cold air—too close. I felt the blade move through the space between me and the enemy. My heart thudded, and I thought sure that the devil standing over me must hear it.

      The sword’s point was worn, but its owner was hardly gentle. It hurt, even through layers of clothing. I forced myself to lie still as the soldier probed at my unresponding form. It was the hardest moment of my life, harder even than hearing of Ma’s death at the hands of these same invaders.

      The song began with a single voice rising from the chill, damp earth. An alleluia, slow and drawn out, its syllables rising and falling like breath, full of heat and moisture, coming from the cold ground.

      Another voice answered the first, an antiphon from deep inside the earth itself.

      The sky lightened. The shapes of the raiders were visible as silhouettes, frozen by fear. The alleluia bubbled to my lips as well, soaring through me and adding earth’s voice to my own and the voices of all the others. Still white with hoar frost, we sang our joy and our surprise and our dawning realization that another miracle was taking place.

      Here.

      Now.

      The raiders broke and ran. Most headed down the hill, past the altar, into the stream which, until Germanus ordered it dammed, had been shallow and swift. Now it was deeper than a man’s head, and the raiders were panicky, burdened with weapons and armor. Many drowned.

      Others fell into the deadfalls and died. Still more went tumbling over the snares we had set.

      When the sun cleared the horizon, the Britons held the field. Forever after, men called the battle, such as it was, the Alleluia Victory. Da’ and Germanus counted the dead invaders into the hundreds. The rest fled, panicked, into the wild. Some regrouped to retreat. Others simply disappeared. The barbarian alliance was broken.