Vox Angelica
by Soledad
Author's note: vox angelica is an organ stop, giving a gentle tremolo effect; it means "the voice of the angels". For disclaimer, rating, etc., see Chapter 1.
This story takes place after the sixteenth novel, "The Heretic's Apprentice", but before the seventeenth, "The Potter's Field". Some of the descriptions follow the original closely, yet with slight alterations.
A word to historic authenticity: the hermits (although I rechristened them and made two of them Welsh, which they probably weren't), as well as the people who made grants to Farewell, really existed once, and the grants themselves are officially recorded. I only moved them back and forth in time a little, so that they could come together for this story. So, Robert the reeve actually made his grant in 1145, and Sara Peche took the veil in 1170… not that this really matters. However, that is the spot where authenticity stops and the events of the story begin.
Chapter Six – A Disputed Grant to Farewell
Sister Benedicta's enigmatic comment curbed Cadfael's curiosity so much that he decided to pay the hermits a visit right after None. In the hope to learn more about the goings-on within the hamlet from a fellow Welshman, he chose the hermitage of Brother Rhodri, which was the one standing a little apart from the other two, on the left side of the clearing before the new priory.
As it was customary for hermit cells, each of the three was completely independent from the other two, consisting of a small, stoutly-built, low-roofed stone hut, standing in the middle of a little square garden, which was fenced with a low pale. The ground within the small enclosure seemed well-cleaned and planted. Brother Rhodri was apparently fond of gardening and quite good at it.
The door of the hut stood open, and as he couldn't see the hermit in the garden, Cadfael decided to go in, following the steady gleam of light that shone from within. The room that he entered was small and dim and almost empty but for a pallet bed against the wall, a small table that obviously served as the hermit's desk, and a bench.
The light that had lured Cadfael in burned in the other room, separated from the first one only by an open doorway. He could see that the back room was a chapel, lit by a fairly large oil lamp, which hung above a stone altar. The altar was unadorned, save from a simple reliquary carved from dark wood standing upon it; and a small, standing cross masterfully wrought of iron atop of the reliquary. Two leather-bound, worn books lay on the single stone step before the altar, ready for use: the Holy Scripture and a breviary.
On the same step, a man was kneeling motionlessly; a short, heavily-built man in a rough black habit, with the cowl tossed back to reveal a short-cropped, thorny tonsure – black, yet generously peppered with grey. Whoever Brother Rhodri might have been, he was not a young man anymore. His ears had still to be fairly good, though, for he heard Cadfael's quiet footsteps and clambered to his feet to see who had come to see him.
He had a broad Welsh face, framed by an unruly beard that reached to the middle of his chest and had even more grey in the black than his hair, small, twinkling black eyes and a slightly upturned nose, which gave his visage an air of child-like merriment, despite his apparent age. His strong limbs and heavy shoulders revealed that he had worked hard – probably on the fields – all his life.
Seeing Cadfael's familiar black habit, the hermit's eyes lit up with joyous recognition.
"Come in, Brother," he said with a pleasant grin. "Come and tell me what can I do for you?"
"Truthfully, I don't need you to do aught for me," replied Cadfael, accepting the invitation readily. "I humbly admit that it was mere curiosity what brought me here. I wanted to see the hermits who have come such a long way from home to serve God in a foreign country."
"Home, you say?" asked the hermit, even more pleased. "Are you a fellow Welshman, then? I should have known; you have the shape and the bones for it."
"That I am," said Cadfael, "though I have been a brother of Shrewsbury Abbey for nigh twenty years by now. But born I was Cadfael ap Meilyr ap Dafydd, a long time ago, or it seems to me on some days, in Gwynedd."
"Gwynedd, eh?" said the hermit. "I am from Powys, myself, and was once known as Rhodri the Fatherless. But that, too, was a long time ago. For twenty and six summers have I lived in this little cell already – alone for many years, with two younger brothers in the last five of them. But come, let us sit on the bench; we will be more comfortable there. I regret that I have nought to offer you but some bread and a cup of water…"
"There is no need for that," answered Cadfael, making himself comfortable on the bench. "We just had midday meal brought us to the guest hall, and it has been my experience that the need for food lessens as one gets older. I need nothing but a little company at the moment. 'Tis a rare thing to find Welsh hermits in foreign lands… and rarer even that I have the chance to speak my mother tongue with someone from home."
"'Tis the same for me," admitted the hermit, switching to Welsh happily. "We are not supposed to talk to each other, among brethren, and the people who come to us for advice, or to ask us to pray for them, are usually from the neighbourhood."
"Do they visit you often?" asked Cadfael, curious to find out whether old Sister Alphonse had been right about the hermits.
Brother Rhodri nodded. "They do. People suffer a great deal in a country torn apart by kin-strife and pillaged by ruthless lords who use the chaos to gather riches for themselves. These are unsettling times for England, and the simple folk have no-one but God to turn to for help."
"That would explain the generosity people show towards the bishop's new foundation here," said Cadfael thoughtfully. "As if they would hope to stay in God's good graces hat way."
The hermit nodded again. "That might be so," he allowed, "and yet the Lord Bishop would do better not to push people so much to support the sisters. They already have enough to keep building that cloister of theirs for a while. And even though they lead a simple life, personally, resentful heirs whose inheritance – for which they have hoped for years – suddenly goes to the nuns, might see that differently."
Cadfael frowned. He knew that the hunger for land could drive men to detestable deeds, but the thought that some of the grants for Farewell might cut into some rightful heirs' interests had not yet occurred to him… although it should have, he admitted ruefully.
"Do you know of any-one for certain who would resent his father's grant to the nunnery?" he asked.
"More than just one," replied the hermit, "as they come to me to complain all the time. There is the son of Baldwin Peche to begin with: nigh fifteen years older than the girl who's come to take the veil, with a wife and two sons and a daughter of his own. He is quite unhappy about losing the lands in Morhale, with the serf who is tending to them, and quite loud about his unhappiness."
"Not surprising, with three children to care for," murmured Cadfael, "even though those lands are the dowry of his sister."
"They are," said the hermit, "but as long as the girl was unmarried, he could use the lands as he pleased and have his profits of it."
"Which he will now lose if Sara joins the house of Farewell," Cadfael nodded in understanding, reminding himself to tell Mark these things. Mark then could decide whether the bishop needed to be told as well. "Who else is there?"
"Thomas, the son of the reeve, who has hoped for years to inherit those eight acres of land and the pasture that goes with them, all of which have gone to the sisters but a short time ago," answered the hermit. "And Hamo de Hammerwich is not happy, either, seeing half of his inheritance going to the priory as well."
"Of how much land are we speaking?" asked Cadfael.
The hermit shrugged. "Half a hide – but for some it counts very much… more so if that is all they have. The father is one of the de Clinton's tenants and has held those lands for many years. His son hoped to acquire the same rights by inheritance, in God's time. That is what usually happens with such lands. But now half of the estate will be held by the sisters in demesne, and only the other half by Haminch's heir as tenant of the nuns."
"You are very knowledgeable about all this," said Cadfael.
"That I am," replied the hermit, "for our Brother Godric was the one to word the first written contract that was sent to the lord bishop for approval. He has the neatest hand of us all. Neither Haminch nor his son is lettered, and the son did not want one of the sisters to write it. He is bitterly resentful, that one, always suspicious of others robbing him or stealing from him."
"Which shows clearly that the riches of this world cannot make one truly happy," said Cadfael.
"Perhaps so," agreed the hermit. "But not every-one can move into a cell as we have done and hope for alms in hard times. Most people must try to eke out a living in the outside world, which is hard enough. It is in men's nature that they would be resentful if the means for that – or part of them – are taken from them and given to others."
"Understandable, even though encouraging greed would do no good to any-one," answered Cadfael. "Let us hope and pray that the lord bishop's good intentions won't cause any unintended harm."
"Hope is all that we have, cloistered or secular folk alike," nodded the hermit in agreement; then he glanced though the open door out into the garden, where a slender, black-covered figure was approaching, carrying a tray. "Oh, I see the good sisters have sent our midday meal, too."
Cadfael frowned, as the newcomer clearly was not one of the servants – or even the lay sisters who would usually be assigned such duties.
"They send the choir sisters to see after you needs? That's highly irregular; and can lead to unwanted talk, too."
"Oh, but this isn't just any choir sister," replied Brother Rhodri with twinkling eyes. "'Tis Sister Amadea, so forward on the path of sainthood that not even gossip can come close to her, for fear of the fire of heavens coming down to punish them."
Cadfael did not miss the ironic undertone and eyes the approaching nun with wary interest. She was a tall woman, at least a head taller than him, with a long, plain, austere face of almost oppressing piety, and hazel eyes that seemed to look beyond all earthly needs. She made the impression of ascetic reverence, without actually being thin, her expression benign yet unsmiling. She placed the tray on Brother Rhodri's small table, inclined her head in a benevolent manner and left again, without as much as a word of greeting.
"She's taken a vow of silence, for a year," commented Brother Rhodri, who clearly would never have been able to do the same; he seemed to like the sound of his own voice too much. "Barely six years cloistered, and she already behaves as if she were Saint Catherine of Alexandria. It irks the lay sisters to no end; the poor souls always feel as if she'd look down her nose at them."
"And? Does she?" asked Cadfael.
"She does," allowed Brother Rhodri, "but to be fair with her, she looks down on the other sisters the same way. Neither of them is pious enough in her saintly eyes."
Again, there was that ironic undertone; not quite biting, but not in the holy sister's favour, either.
"Why would she hold herself above all the others?" wondered Cadfael. "Is she of noble birth?"
That would have explained part of it. Daughters of the aristocracy – especially those of Norman aristocracy – would still see themselves as something better than the average sister.
Brother Rhodri shook his head, grinning. "Oh, no. She's the daughter of some small trader, or so Sister Waltraut says, and was tirewoman to a lady of the small nobility before the life in that manor would offend her so much that she'd run away and take the veil at Wherwell. When Queen Matilda's Flemings burned down the house to get to the men of the Empress who'd ensconced themselves there, she fled with the other sisters and came here, as she had kin in Lichfield. Sister Waltraut says she used to be the almoner in Wherwell, but I cannot say if it's true or not."
"An office like that would certainly fit her chosen path of sainthood on earth," agreed Cadfael. Still, he could not quite shake off the unconformable feeling that the intense look of those hazel eyes had awakened in him. It had not been fanatism, not exactly, but it showed a determination that could lead to fanatic actions, given the right circumstances.
He wondered how the self-appointed saint of Farewell might have reacted to the arrival of the semi-renegade sisters of Godric's Ford. Had she shared their dismay over the quick rise of someone with Sister Magdalen's past to the office of the prioress? Or had she considered the rebellious sisters violators of the Rule? Either way, Sister Eata and the others would have to tread carefully around her; more so if either Mother Patrice or Sister Augustine were duly impressed by so much sanctity in their midst.
Not Mother Patrice, most likely, though. She was a shrewd, practical-minded, down-to-earth woman, which might have been the reason Bishop de Clinton had selected her to lead the new house. The sub-prioress, on the other hand…
"Can you tell me aught about Sister Augustine?" he asked.
Brother Rhodri nodded. "She's the widow of a master weaver from Lichfield and used to be a name-worthy embroideress. Their workshop used to make all the liturgical robes and the altar cloths for the lord bishop and his canons. When her husband died, the lord bishop asked her to bring the entire workshop to Farewell, and she came willingly enough, knowing that she'll be provided here for life. You see, they had no children who could have carried on the business, and that way Farewell gained another means to provide for itself and those depending on the sisters' charity."
Cadfael called up the image of a tall, drab woman with a long, pointy nose and stern dark eyes in his mind. No, in her late forties Sister Augustine could not have expected to marry again and have heirs with a new husband. The cloister had been her best choice; more so as she would be invaluable, having brought a flourishing business with her. Unless…
"She seemed very pallid to me," he remembered. "Is she of poor health?"
In which case her office would be free for the taking, soon; another aspect to be considered.
Brother Rhodri shrugged. "She has a weak stomach, they say; she cannot take much seasoning in her food, nor aught sweetened with honey or grape juice. Other than that, she's robust enough. And a stern taskmaster, too. Sister Waltraut, who works with her in the embroidery shop, saw her make the girls and younger sisters undo entire altar shawls or mitres for one small mistake in the stitches."
Which would not make her well-loved among those working under her hand – but it would make the wares coming from Farewell famous and much sought-after. Still, there was another source for inner conflicts within the convent. Cadfael felt that he did not envy Mother Patrice for the task entrusted to her. But she was a strong woman. She would manage.
"How many lay sisters does the house have anyway?" he asked, as Brother Rhodri had only mentioned one so far. It seemed unlikely, though, that they would not have more. Just like the monks in Shrewsbury, they would need lay sisters who do the heavy labour while the others were standing in the church, praying.
"Only three so far," replied the hermit, "although with this kin-strife going on for a few more years, there might be entire armies of poor widows seeking safety behind such sacred walls. But for now, there's Sister Waltraut – you can easily recognize her, as she was born with a lame leg and walks with the help of a cane – Sister Jehane, who's in charge of the laundry house and the clothes press, and Sister Donata, the bakestre; a big, raw-boned warhorse of a woman, slow of wit but with a heart of pure gold. She bakes very good bread, too," he added, lifting the lid from his modest bowl of porridge and sniffing appreciatively. "If you don't mind, Brother, I'd eat my midday meal as long as it's still warm. But do come and visit me any time you want. I shall be glad to answer your questions if I can."
Recognising the dismission, Cadfael took his leave for the cheerful hermit and returned to the guest house. He intended to write down some of Sister Alphonse's self-created recipes as long as he still remembered them.
At the same time when Cadfael visited the hermit, the contract to one of the very grants they had discussed was being signed in the private parlour of Mother Patrice. The documents, with which Bishop de Clinton transferred the land formerly held by Haminch de Hammerwich – at his own request – to the Priory of Farewell, had been carefully re-phrased and rewritten by Hugh, his chaplain, and prepared to be signed by Father Radulfus and Robert the reeve as witnesses. Deacon Serlo and Brother Mark had also been invited, in case they would need to act in the bishop's name by similar agreements, while a small local nobleman, Alvrich de Quadraria, stood as witness for the secular authorities.
Haminch de Hammerwich had brought his entire family to witness the giving of the grant. A big, fleshy man in his late fifties, with a second wife more than a decade his junior but with no children from this second marriage, he made a splendid appearance in his finery, with short-cropped, iron-grey hair and a neatly-trimmed grey beard framing his fine, strong features. His pale eyes, though, had something of a religious fanatic; having entered the last leg of his life's journey, he was clearly worried about the salvation of his soul, for which reason he might have suggested the grant to Farewell to begin with. A decision after which, if rumours could be trusted, he would have had a bad fallout with his only son and heir.
Said son, by the name of Hamo, could not be older than twenty-three or twenty-four years by the look of him, although his straw-blond hair, shorn at collar length, already seemed to be thinning at his temples and crown. A common enough country lad, in good homespun, long-legged and wide-shouldered, with a long, handsome countenance and grey-blue Saxon eyes. Presently, he had an angry scowl on that comely face, clearly unhappy about the loss of half his inheritance; and that he had also been dragged here to see it happening.
His stepmother, Dame Astola, on the other hand, seemed to have accepted her husband's growing piety with tired resignation. A quiet, submissive young woman perhaps of thirty-five years of age, she was the dowerless daughter of a penniless knight, who never dared to speak up against the men of her family. Least so against her husband, who – while considerably below her in rank – provided her with the means of a better life than she would have ever hoped for.
Her simple yet finely-made clothes bore witness of those means. She wore a floor-length chemise of dark blue linen and over that a form-fitting bliaut of a paler blue, which had a flaring shirt and sleeves tight to the elbow and then widening to wrist in trumpet shape, revealing the long, tight sleeves of the chemise, in French fashion. Her face was thin and pale in the white frame of the crisp linen wimple, her skin very fair, and her eyes, reserved and weary, a pale, clear blue. An errant lock of white-blond hair, escaping from its confinement somehow, glittered like pure silver against the background of the dark blue veil covering her fine, elegant head. The rest of her hair must have been coiled up under the veil, for it could not be seen, but that single lock spoke clearly of a Danish ancestor somewhere in her bloodline. She could have been very beautiful, had she had but a little more life in her.
Unlike her stepson, she listened to the discussion about the wording of the contract with resigned indifference. She had spent her youth in dignified poverty and probably dreaded the return of such circumstances; yet assurances had been made to provide for her, thus she had less reason to begrudge Farewell the generous grant than Hamo might have.
The young man's face darkened considerably when Hugh the chaplain read the finalized contract for everyone to hear.
"His Lordship Roger de Clinton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, hereby grants the half hide of land held by Haminch de Hammerwich, at Haminch's own request, to the Benedictine Priory of Lichfield, currently under the leadership of Mother Patrice of Coventry. Half of this estate is to be held by the sisters of Farewell in demesne and the other half by Haminch's heir as tenant of the good sisters. This contract, unless the grantor decides otherwise, will be valid in three day's time."
"My congratulations, sir, "said Hamo de Hammerwich bitterly, as all witnesses had signed the document and put their personal seals (or, in Abbot Radulfus' case, the seal of the Abbey) upon it. "You've just bought your place in heavens – on the price your own son's future. I'm sure the angels and the saints will be pleased."
"Young man," said the bishop warningly, "this is not the proper manner to speak to your father."
"My father?" repeated the young man bitterly. "I have no father, my lord. A man who robs his own son of any future livelihood, just to buy himself safeties in the afterlife, is not a father; 'tis a coward. He's relieved about the fate of his miserable soul, and I… I'm but a beggar, with no hope to find a suitable wife or feed a family of my own, ever!"
"Now, why would you speak such nonsense, son?" shook his head Robert, the reeve of the village of Farewell. He was a thickset fellow of about forty-five, bearded and round-faced; a good-natured soul, but with a dignified reserve about him, and also a devout patron of the nunnery. "It does stand in the contract that you shall hold half of those lands as a tenant to this house, doesn't it?"
"Half of what should be held by me by rights, and even that as a servant of the nuns!" exclaimed the young man in angry disappointment. "Good, fertile soil that I've been tending to since I was old enough to hold the plough straight! Where's the justice in that? Those lands were all I had, but this man, who dares to call himself my father, gives them away, to a houseful of nuns who already have fat enough alms to feed them for three lifetimes each – more than they could ever use!"
"You dare to speak about justice?" Bishop de Clinton was beginning to get angry, too. "Have you forgotten that those lands were never yours? They were mine, by the right of my family, and you and your father were mere tenants, tending to them."
"I haven't forgotten that," replied the young man darkly. "But you, my lord bishop, seem to forget that have we not tended to your lands, you wouldn't be clad and horsed so splendidly as you are. Or would you have come to tend to your own lands with those soft, white hands that never lifted anything heavier than a pen or an eating knife?"
The bishop involuntarily glanced from his own strong, graceful hands at those of the young man that were brown and roughened by long years of heavy labour on the fields. Ere he could have thought of a proper answer, though, the father cut in.
"Insolent cub!" shouted Haminch de Hammerwich and backhanded his son with a force that the young man fell against the wall behind him and blood began to trickle from his nose. "How do you dare to speak to the lord bishop in such a foul manner? What's mine is mine, and you have no right to approve or disapprove of what I do with it. A grown man or not, you're not above a sound beating, as long as you live under my roof!"
The young man balled his fists, losing his own temper very quickly; for a moment it seemed that he would attack his own father, before the eyes of all the assembled clergy and the lay witnesses. Fortunately, Brother Mark came between them just in time, holding Hamo back with a surprising strength acquired in the years he had laboured on his uncle's farm. A strength no-one would have expected from his slight frame.
"Leave it, lad," he said in a calm, soothing voice he would have used with a bolting horse. "What's done is done; you cannot change it," he glanced at the bishop. "My lord, with your leave I'll take him to Brother Cadfael to have his injury seen to and the bleeding stopped. Perhaps his head, too, will cool down a little in the fresh air."
Roger de Clinton nodded. "A most sensible suggestion, Brother Mark. Please do so. We can finish our business here without your assistance."
"The lord bishop and Master Haminch are most generous," said Mother Patrice after Collations, in private council with Abbot Radulfus, Brother Adrianus and Sister Augustine," yet I am still most disturbed by the scene we had to witness at the signing of the contract. I never knew the young man would be so embittered by this grant – or his father so bent on making it, despite his objections."
"His objections are of no consequence," stated Sister Augustine judgementally. "He has no ownership over those lands, even if his greed has obviously driven him to such delusions. 'Tis not our fault that he's been nursing futile hopes."
"The lord bishop was well within his rights to grant the lands to Farewell," added Abbot Radulfus. "And so was Master Haminch to suggest the grant."
"Perhaps so," allowed Mother Patrice, "but could a religious house like ours truly benefit from a grant that has raised so much hatred between father and son? In one thing that young man was right: we do have enough to cover our needs; ours, and those of the poor who turn to us for sustenance. True, the income of those lands would help us to finish the building of the cloister much sooner. But what good would do us a fine stone building, when it is founded on envy and hatred?"
"Your concerns are well-founded, Reverend Mother," said Brother Adrianus, "but there is nought you can do about this. You cannot refuse the grant of the lord bishop; neither can you give it back to that angry young fellow. They belong to Farewell now – for good or for worse."
"I know," the prioress sighed. "I fear this will be for the worse, though."
"Should it come to that, it shan't be your responsibility," pointed out Abbot Radulfus. "You have not asked for this grant, after all."
The prioress raised a sardonic eyebrow.
"Somehow that fact won't make me sleep any better," she replied drily. "We are recipients of something the loss of which someone mourns bitterly. We may not have asked for it, true, but we still benefit from the loss of a young man's hopes, who wanted to build his entire future on this. Foolish as it may sound, but it makes me feel like a thief."
Sister Augustine shook her head in disagreement. As a woman who had helped to run her late husband's business for many years, she saw such things less… sentimentally.
"You're too gracious, Mother Patrice. You should not worry about things that are not within your power either to affirm or to change," she said.
"Shouldn't I?" echoed Mother Patrice. "I believe that I should. The good of Christian souls should be our first concern in everything. But you're correct in one thing, Sister Augustine: it isn't within my powers to change this, even if I wanted. So, unless Master Haminch has a change of heart within the next three days and asks the lord bishop to reconsider, this is one more responsibility I'll have to shoulder, whether it has been my doing or not."
"He won't change his heart about this," said Brother Adrianus quietly. "He's a man used to have his own way; and that his son dared to speak up against his choice has only strengthened his decision. Your grant is safe, Reverend Mother."
"Safe it may be," answered Mother Patrice softly, "but is it blessed as well? I do wonder."
"It's been blessed by the lord bishop," Sister Augustine reminded her.
The prioress nodded. "I know. 'Tis God's blessing I'm worried about, though."
To that, the others had no proper answer, and she rose resolutely.
"Well, my lord abbot, it seems that there's nothing we can do to make things better indeed, and the bell for Vespers will be tolling, soon. Sister Augustine will escort you to the lord bishop's lodging; I hope that will be to your liking. Father Adrianus, you can go with Sister Amadea. She'll show you to the sacristy and where the liturgical robes are kept. She serves as the sacristan until a permanent one is found for that task."
She waited for her guests to leave, ere she would lower herself onto the praying desk to seek guidance by the higher powers watching over their lives.
In his small chamber in the guest hall, Brother Cadfael, who had been told about the awful scene between Haminch de Hammerwich and his son by Brother Mark, was doing the same. He had seen enough resentful heirs in his life to expect the worst from a basically decent young man who had been pressed beyond his endurance.
He was seriously worried about this family, trapped between exaggerated piety, jealous love for the lands that had been more truly theirs, the ones who had laboured on them, than they had ever belonged to the de Clintons, and the fear from what tomorrow might bring. For while the father feared the salvation of his own soul after death, the son was concerned about not being able to make a life, hopefully a good one, before death, and who could tell which of those concerns was the more urgent one? Which one of them would be more desperate to set his fears to rest?
Cadfael shook his head tiredly and rose from his knees to attend Vespers in the small church. He had done what he could do: dressed the broken nose of the son, entrusting him to Brother Mark's care – the rest was in God's hand.
~TBC~
