Waking was like the beginning of consciousness in the very young. It was gradual, and was unmarked by any sense of its own arrival. Tucked in bed, I lay for an indefinite time without moving or opening my eyes. Two men beside me had been talking forever in Aramaic. I knew, in some instinctive way, that they were servants. I knew they were there to watch over me. What they were saying had, until just moments before, been unintelligible and without importance. Those five additional drops from Jacob into my wine cup had struck me like the blow to a slaughtered animal. Almost before I’d noticed how soft the pillows were, I was swallowed into a serene and infinite blackness. There had been no visits that night from the many dead I’d known, nor from the yet unborn; no visions of my own grave; no severed hands feeling their way over my face – the opium had brought me sleep and nothing more.
But now I was awake. And, if not willing to show that I was awake, I was fully aware of my surroundings.
‘I told you, Reuben – I told you many times – the Master’s going soft in the head,’ one of the servants was saying. The words aside, I had the impression this was more than his first repetition. ‘He turns up yesterday with three goys, all of them wanted by the Empire. He’s now got another one hidden away in his counting house, and we’re under orders to say bugger all about them. This here old bag of bones is the guest of honour. One of the boys is dying. The other one – well, you’ve heard it for yourself from Miriam. We’re two inches from all being dragged off to Carthage and pulled apart with hot pincers. If you ask me, the Master’s gone fucking mad.’
‘He was up till dawn with Doctor Jacob,’ I heard Reuben say defensively. ‘They was talking and talking. I didn’t hear much of what was said. But trust me – the Master ain’t no fool. He’s done right by the whole house. Just you keep your mouth shut and do as you’re told. You’ll see a Passover yet without no bastard Greeks to tell us our ways.’
‘ Another one hidden away in his counting house,’ I’d heard. It would have been worth hearing more on that. To hear more, I’d gladly have lain there, my face conveniently half buried under the coverings, till evening. But I heard the door open and a heavy tread on the boards. Both servants were on their feet.
‘Isn’t he awake yet?’ Jacob asked. There was a silence that I guessed was a reply of shaking heads. He clicked his tongue impatiently, then went into Greek. ‘Not another overdose!’ he said in the quiet tone of a man who knows he is speaking only to himself. ‘I really must cut down on things.’ I heard him approach the bed. I felt his hand brush lightly on the unshaven stubble above my ears. In a moment, he’d probably have one of my wrists out to see how close to death he’d really dosed me. Nothing else for it. I groaned and moved slightly. I felt him draw back and I went through the motions of opening my eyes and looking confused.
‘You’re among friends,’ Jacob said.
A priest – no, make that a toadying courtier, or, better still, some diplomat sent out to make trouble among the barbarians – would have had trouble matching the absolute conviction in his voice. Then again, he was a doctor and a Jew. One of the servants helped me as I struggled to sit up. I looked about the room. The bed set up for Edward was as neatly made as it had been the night before. I could tell nothing from that, mind you. Everyone else had been up and about for ages. There was no direct sunlight in this room. But the light that came in from the garden had an afternoon quality. I drank from a cup of honeyed wine diluted with fruit juice and asked about Wilfred. Jacob pulled a long face and took on a more openly professional appearance. He didn’t need to say much. It hadn’t been to get my lunch orders that he’d come to see if I was awake. On a chair by the window, there was a newish robe set out for me. Unlike the one I’d been given in Cartenna, it was neither faded tat nor too big. The colour was too light for what I had in mind. But it would do.
‘I think we’ll have to skip the confession,’ I said in Aramaic. Jacob nodded. I wondered if he hadn’t been a little enthusiastic with the belladonna. But Wilfred, I’d been told, had woken in considerable pain while I slept, and a doctor’s recognised duty is to his patient’s body. Now, he lay before me, semi-conscious but rigid from the administration of this and the other drugs.
‘Confirm to me, if you can,’ I said loudly, now in Latin, ‘that you have received all other rites of the Faith. These include baptism and communion.’ Just in case, I repeated myself in English. It was a redundant question, but had to be asked if the last rite was to be correctly administered. The pale eyes blinked slightly. ‘You know, then,’ I continued, ‘that I am qualified by virtue of my priestly office to administer these rites.’ No doubt, my qualifications were decidedly iffy. But, since no one in England had seen fit to question them on my arrival there, now wasn’t the time to disabuse poor Wilfred of their validity. All told, I’d sooner have had a real priest brought in. I hadn’t bothered raising this with Jacob. He could certainly have got me one – just as he’d managed to gather the necessary props. But now wasn’t the time for introducing more Christians into the house. And all that really mattered was that Wilfred believed me. If death really was other than an infinite sleep still deeper than the one from which I was lately recovered, it would be a most perverse God who took against him on my account.
With dramatic emphases and pauses that any real priest would have envied rotten, I went through the prayers as I’d heard them said by others any number of times. The gaunt fingers fluttered ever so little on the wooden crucifix, and a thin trickle of the olive oil I’d just blessed ran down from his forehead on to the bed clothes. At last, I produced a fragment of the Host. I broke it in two and placed the smaller part between the dry lips. As I did so, they trembled and a faint effort was made to move them.
And it was now done. All that remained was the final prayer. I opened my mouth again and, Edward joining in, launched into the ancient words:
‘O Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prisons: We humbly commend the soul of this thy servant, our dear brother, into thy hands, as into the hands of a faithful Creator, and most merciful Saviour; most humbly beseeching thee, that it may be precious in thy sight. Wash it, we pray thee, in the blood of that immaculate Lamb, that was slain to take away the sins of the world…’
The lips moved again. This time, Wilfred was able to speak.
‘Brother Aelric,’ he whispered. ‘Brother Aelric.’
I moved closer to the dying boy’s mouth. ‘Be at peace, my child,’ I said in my reassuring voice. ‘There is nothing now to fear, in this world or the next. Of all you might have confessed I have now absolved you.’ That should have sorted things. But, no – the lips moved again.
‘I have sinned, Brother Aelric,’ he gasped with urgent though failing energy. ‘Such sins have I committed and never confessed to you. It was my plan – but God has called me so soon…’
He trailed off, and I thought this would be it. Jacob moved forward with a beaker of something aromatic to put under his nose. But the boy struggled with the feeble ghost of one of his coughing fits. I waved Jacob back.
Then, with an immense effort, Wilfred continued in a desperate croak: ‘You must know that Brother Cuthbert – yes, Brother Cuthbert. .. He commanded, and I obeyed. He told me – he said… I discovered…’
He trailed off once more, and now closed his eyes. Jacob moved forward again, beaker still in hand. There was no point letting him try anything more. I’ve seen the shadow of death pass over any number of faces. It’s not so much a darkening of colour as a loss of something. I’ve also held the hands of the dying so often. With its usual rapidity, I could now feel the mysterious transformation of living flesh and bone into the sort of meat you buy in a butcher’s market. I didn’t need to see the eyes turn up, or the mouth open wide for that last, rattling sigh, to know it was all up with the boy. He was as near gone as mattered. Even if some spark of life continued deep within, there was no point in supposing he was aware of anything outside himself. Still, I continued with the prayer to the end. Deathbeds are as much for the living as the dead. Besides, if what Edward believed was his own affair, there was a Jew present, and a certain appearance had to be kept up. I finished the prayer, then waited. As the lips sagged fully, and all tension went out of the body, I stood back and allowed Jacob to press his mirror to the boy’s face. He drew it back and held it up for me, still unmisted. It really was over.
I sat down and took the full cup in both hands. I looked at Edward, who was still staring, still impassive – except, I was pleased to notice, for the single tear he’d managed to squeeze out – at the lifeless, shrivelled body. If you hadn’t known that his fourteenth birthday would have been a full month later, you’d have thought this the body of an old man, broken down by years of sickness. On his arrival in the monastery, Wilfred had told me of his ambition to train for the priesthood, and join the mission the English Church was fitting out for the conversion of the Germans. Except for the collapse of his health – only slightly arrested by our passage through the Narrow Straits – I rather thought he’d enjoyed the adventure forced on him by Edward. In place of all his hopes, though, here he lay dead. And I, more than seven times his age, had prayed him over the threshold of death. How many more of those round me would I outlive before I finally turned to rancid butcher’s meat?
But it was a pointless question. I drained the cup and held it out for a refill. Jacob pulled the sheet up over the face and muttered something about arranging a funeral. For a Jew, he had surprising contacts in the Church. Then again, he was a doctor, and few who need the healing art bother with which God – if any – its practitioners may care to worship.
‘This has been a sad event,’ I said lamely – and what point was there in making a fuss? What point in saying what might be really in my heart? ‘But let us be inspired as Christians by the calm resolution with which Wilfred was taken unto God.’
No – that wouldn’t do! It was a worthless pretence. Including the two old women who’d step forward in a moment to lay out the body, there were five of us in the room. Three of us weren’t even supposed to be Christians. The other two believed bugger all. My words didn’t touch one of us. When something as empty of meaning as death happens, silence may be the best response. I wanted to get out into the garden, and walk round and round in the sun, looking at the flowers and the fountain, and thinking about what to do next.
‘Edward, I will speak with you later this afternoon,’ I said. ‘What has just happened – together with other matters – alters all our plans. I need to discuss these with you. There are some decisions that only you can make. Until then, I suggest you go to our room and lie down.’ He had the dark circles under his eyes of one who hasn’t slept. If I cared to notice this at all, I might prefer to think that grief had kept him awake.