Page 209 of The Evening and the Morning
“Fetch it now, and bring it to me.”
Frigyth got to her feet.
“Quickly, run!”
She ran through the crowd and entered a nearby house.
Abbe said: “I thought I’d lost it.”
Aldred prayed again. “O holy saint, we thank you for touching the sinner’s heart and making her confess!”
Frigyth reappeared with a shiny knife having an elaborately carved bone handle. She passed it to Aldred. He called Abbe, and she stepped forward. She wore a faintly skeptical look: she was older than Frigyth, and perhaps not so ready to believe in miracles.
Aldred said: “Do you forgive your neighbor?”
“Yes,” said Abbe without enthusiasm.
“Then give her the kiss of mercy.”
Abbe kissed Frigyth’s cheek.
Aldred handed Abbe the knife then said: “All kneel!”
He began a prayer in Latin. This was the cue for the monks to go around with begging bowls. “A gift for the saint, please,” they said quietly to the villagers, who could not easily move away because they were on their knees. A few shook their heads and said: “No money, sorry.” Most fished in their belt purses and came up with farthings and halfpennies. Two men went to their houses and returned with silver. The alehouse keeper gave a penny.
The monks thanked each donor, saying: “Saint Adolphus gives you his blessing.”
Aldred’s spirits were high. The villagers had been awestruck. A woman had confessed a theft. Most people had given money. The event had achieved what he wanted, despite Wynstan’s attempt to undermine it. And if it worked in Trench it would work elsewhere. Perhaps the priory would survive after all.
Aldred’s plan had been that the monks would spend the night in the church, guarding the relics, but that had to be abandoned now. He made a quick decision. “We’ll leave the village in procession and find somewhere else to spend the night,” he said to Godleof.
Aldred had one more message for the villagers. “You may see the saint again,” he said. “Come to the church at Dreng’s Ferry on Whitsunday, the feast of Pentecost. Bring the sick and the troubled and the bereaved.” He thought of telling them to spread the word, then realized that was unnecessary: everyone would be telling the story of today for months to come. “I look forward to welcoming you all.”
The monks returned with their bowls. Edgar lowered the effigy slowly, then covered it with cloths. Godleof returned the ox to the shafts.
The beast lumbered into action. The monks began to sing, and slowly they left the village.
On Whitsunday Aldred led the monks to the church for the predawn service of Matins, as always. It was a cloudless May morning in the season of hope, when the world was full of promising green shoots, plump piglets, young deer, and fast-growing calves. Aldred’s hope was that the tour he had made with Saint Adolphus would achieve its object of attracting pilgrims to Dreng’s Ferry.
Aldred planned a stone extension to the church, but there had not been enough time to build it, so Edgar had put up a temporary version in wood. A wide, round arch opened from the nave into a side chapel, where the effigy of Adolphus lay on a plinth. The congregation in the nave would observe the service taking place in the chancel and then turn, at the climax of the rite, to see the saint rise up miraculously and stare at them with his blue eyes.
And then, Aldred hoped, they would make donations.
The monks had trudged from village to village with the cart and the effigy, Aldred had repeated his rousing sermon every day for two weeks, and the saint had struck awe into the hearts of the people. There had even been a miracle, albeit a small one: an adolescent girl suffering from severe stomach pain had suddenly recovered when she saw the saint rise up.
The people had given money, mostly in halfpennies and farthings, but it had added up, and Aldred had arrived home with almost a pound of silver. That was very helpful, but the monks could not spend their lives on tour. They needed the people to come to them.
Aldred had urged everyone to visit on Whitsunday. It was in God’s hands now. There was only so much a mere human could do.
After Matins, Aldred paused outside the church to survey the hamlet in the early light. It had grown a little since he moved here. The first newcomer had been Bucca Fish, the third son of a Combe fishmonger and an old pal of Edgar’s. Edgar had persuaded Bucca to set up a stall selling fresh and smoked fish. Aldred had encouraged the project, hoping that a reliable supply of fish would help people in the area to observe more strictly the Church’s rules on fasting: they should eat no meat on Fridays, nor on the twelve festivals ofthe apostles or certain other special days. Demand was strong, and Bucca sold everything caught in Edgar’s traps.
Aldred and Edgar had discussed where Bucca should build a house for himself, and the question had prompted them to draw a village plan. Aldred had suggested a grid of squares for household groups, the way it was usually done, but Edgar had proposed something new, a main street going up the hill and a high street at right angles along the ridge. To the east of the main street they zoned a site for a new, larger church and monastery. It was probably a daydream, Aldred thought, albeit a pleasant one.
All the same, Edgar had spent a day marking the sites of houses in the main street, and Aldred had decreed that anyone willing to build on one of the sites could take timber from the woods and have a year rent-free. Edgar himself was building a house: although he spent a lot of time at Outhenham, nevertheless on the days he was at Dreng’s Ferry he preferred not to sleep at his brothers’ house, where he often had to listen to Cwenburg have sex with one or other of them, noisily.
Following Bucca’s lead three more strangers had settled in Dreng’s Ferry: a rope maker, who used the entire length of his backyard for plaiting his cords; a weaver, who built a long house and put his loom at one end and his wife and children at the other; and a shoemaker, who built a house next to Bucca’s.
Aldred had built a one-room schoolhouse. At first his only pupil had been Edgar. But now three small boys, the sons of prosperous men in the surrounding countryside, came to the priory every Saturday, each clutching half a silver penny in a grubby hand, to learn letters and numbers.
