Now it was Ancel's turn to blink in surprise. "An all-wizard monastery?"
"Oh, yes," Petrus assured him. "Discreetly, of course. But it is really very congenial to live in such an establishment, much to be preferred over an ordinary monastery. Several of our present monks first took their vows elsewhere, and from what they have told me they found it difficult to keep their abilities secret. But come" He turned and beckoned Ancel to follow him to the dormitory building.
A young monk was sitting on a chest, directing a broom to sweep the stone floor. At a word from Petrus he departed and left the two men alone. The monks' cots and chests were clustered to the left-hand side of the door by which they had entered; to the right were a pair of high tables strewn with inkpots, quills, and leaves of parchment and vellum. At the far end of the large room was a long table, evidently where the monks ate. A door behind that led to the kitchen building outside, Ancel surmised. Petrus led him down to the dining table and sat upon one of the benches. Ancel joined him.
"We have no servants, you see," Petrus picked up the thread of conversation, "which serves a double purpose. The bishop thinks well of us for adhering to St. Benedict's rules for monastic life, and there is no one about most of the time to witness anything odd. With the wall and the gate, none may enter the grounds uninvited, though there are days when we let the gate stand open to the village, for the sake of maintaining a cordial relationship with its inhabitants."
"I suppose you don't need servants all that much," said Ancel, "since without them you can use your magic openly amongst yourselves."
"Most of the time, anyway. As I said, we do sometimes allow the local folk in, and we have to be careful then. But with a bit of effort it all works out, and St. Brigid's has a tradition of only accepting novices who are of age – another matter that the bishop appreciates – and already trained in magic, so they understand what they cannot do. We've never had any trouble."
"Trained, eh?" said Ancel. "Trained at home, I suppose?"
Petrus shook his head. "Some, of course, but others have attended a wizarding school that was set up, oh, perhaps a century ago, up north. It bears the peculiar name of Hogwarts; I don't know what my grandmother's cousin was thinking of, but Rowena was supposed to have always been an odd duck. Perhaps she and the other school founders thought that its strangeness would help people to remember not to mention it, or if they did, to keep Muggles from realizing that it was a school and trying to get their own sons admitted to it. I don't know."
On hearing this, Ancel thought immediately of his own family. At eighteen, Geoffrey had already learned a good deal from his parents, and was unlikely to want further instruction, but thirteen-year-old Baldwin and nine-year-old Herleva were another matter. "Is this Hogwarts place for boys only, then?" he asked.
"No, no. It was founded by a pair each of wizards and witches, and both boys and girls are permitted to attend. Your predecessor's daughter Estrild is there," said Petrus. "You must have realized by now that given their foundation of St. Brigid's, the family of Osmund is another wizarding family like your own."
"I had suspected as much," Ancel said. Those suspicions, indeed, were what had led him to send Hamo to Wilton, to see if there were any rumors in the town to that effect. Many wizards were less cautious about hiding their abilities when away from home and less known. "Astonishing coincidence, isn't it, that I should have received his estates. There aren't that many of us about."
Petrus winked at him. "Who assigned those particular manors to you, sir Ancel?"
"Why, King William. Or – no – he simply said I should receive estates of a certain value. It was his secretary Robert who... you mean Robert is one of us? I've known him for years, and he never... How do you know him to be a wizard, Petrus, and he a Norman and you an English monk buried in the country?" demanded Ancel.
"I know every witch and wizard, or nearly so, in these islands, Normandy, and Brittany too," said Petrus complacently. "Someone has to keep track of all the wizarding families." He indicated the shelves that crowded the wall behind the writing tables, stuffed with codices and scrolls in varying states of repair and legibility. "It's all there, going back a thousand years and more. That's why we had to ensure this building was stone, to lessen the risk of fire; but we couldn't have a stone dormitory without a stone church, it would have looked odd to the Muggles. The first abbot, my great-granduncle Gregory, spent most of his life wheedling gold from all the better-off wizarding families to do it. Promised them copies of their own ancestry, mostly, those who were interested in such things."
"I see," said Ancel slowly, his head whirling. Here was a potential stroke of very good luck indeed. If he had access to records of all the wizard families in the British Isles, over time what alliances could his family not make? But best to move slowly in such matters. "Tell me something of Osmund's family, if you would. My elder son is reaching an age where I need to consider a betrothal for him."
"And you're thinking of Osmund's daughter, of course," guessed Petrus. "Very well. It's an old family, certainly. Lived in these parts as far back as my records go and doubtless longer. No especially notable wizards or witches in it, but respectable... mostly." He did not feel it necessary to tell this Norman wizard everything about the family at Swinbroke, not now, and some of those stories about the use of Dark Magic might have been exaggerated in any case. Luckily only other wizards were aware of those rumors. "Good at being discreet, using magic to maintain and improve their position but not so much that any Muggle ever noticed anything unusual in that way. Now I will say that Mildthryth, she came from away to marry Osmund and she's a bit touchy, but I think you can convince her that this would be a good match for the girl. She has sense where it counts," he concluded.
Ancel smiled. "Excellent. There are no wizarding families near my home in Normandy with daughters of a suitable age; none who are of appropriate standing, at any rate. And while I'd marry my son off to a peasant witch before I gave him to a Muggle prince's daughter, this is a far better prospect. My fellows in the king's service will not find it at all odd that Geoffrey should marry an English girl if she's the daughter of the old lord of the manor."
They talked then for a time about the wizarding school to the north. While Petrus had not attended it himself, explaining that he had been sickly as a boy and his mother had feared to send him so far, with his family connections to the place he was able to give Ancel a good deal of information about it. Ancel concluded that he should go and speak with those who ran Hogwarts about sending Baldwin there, and Herleva in a year or two. But he would wait to do that until he had paid another visit to lady Mildthryth and secured her agreement to the idea of betrothing their children; then he could carry that message to her daughter and achieve two purposes with one journey.
Later, Petrus showed him around the monastery's buildings and gardens. "We have some additional property as well, given to us over the years by both wizarding and Muggle patrons, but the income from Long Plumwod is still the basis of our support," he hinted. The bell in the campanile next to the church rang just then. "Would you like to join us in the church, as we pray the hour of sext? We take our dinner just afterward."
Ancel followed the abbot into the church and listened as the men sang and prayed, but did not join in. In the refectory afterward, he adhered to the monks' custom of silence at meals. The food was simple, but satisfying: bread, ale, and a vegetable stew. He missed having cheese or meat, however.
When dinner and the prayers for none were over, Ancel sought out Petrus for further conversation before he departed. "It's a well-run place, St. Brigid's, I must say. But I am curious. How can you and the others stand to live as monks, following all the Christian rituals? After all, the Church's position is that witches and wizards should not be suffered to live. How on earth can you endure being part of an organization that would condemn you if it learned what you really are?"
"I don't believe everything the Church says," shrugged Petrus. He pulled his wand from his sleeve and brought two metal cups winging toward them, tapped each and filled it with wine before handing one to Ancel. "It's protective coloration. My family's duty is to preserve the history of our kind, and when it's only in the Church that record-keeping can be carried on without remark, why then, we must use the Church. You'll note that this monastery is dedicated to St. Brigid. She's called a saint, but you and I both know that she was really a witch herself, something true of only a handful of these Christian so-called saints. Old sir Leofgeat and my kinsman Gregory knew what they were about in choosing her as their patroness."
Ancel acknowledged the sense in that, but persisted, "Still, how can you bear the hypocrisy? When the Church condemns magic, and then pretends to practice it by turning wine to blood and bread to flesh? Not that they succeed, thankfully," he added, shuddering.
"I ignore it," said Petrus. "That's all I can do. God knows what is in our hearts, and I don't believe He condemns us for our inborn abilities. He would instead be displeased, I think, if we refused to use the gifts we have. Besides, Jesus himself was a wizard, you know. What some of his followers have done in his name doesn't alter that."
"Oh yes," he said in response to Ancel's look of disbelief. "It's all in the records."
"But I thought you said you only kept records for this part of the world," said Ancel.
"True enough, but a few years back I traveled down through France and Italy, giving it out that I was going on pilgrimage, of course. I did visit some shrines along the way, but my real purpose was to meet with other wizarding archivists; nearly every one of them from throughout Europe and around the Mediterranean came. The keeper of the records from Palestine was there, and he brought copies of the first-century genealogies of that region. Jesus of Nazareth was definitely of wizarding stock, and so were at least two of his disciples, including Mary Magdalen. Why, man, you could guess that from the stories they tell of him in the Bible – just think of the so-called miracle of the loaves and fishes, for instance. Clearly a simple Refilling Charm on the baskets.
"Now, I certainly don't believe that the man was God in human form. If the bishop heard that he'd haul me up for heresy; Arianism was condemned at the Council of Nicaea, centuries ago. But I think Arius was right and that worshiping a human, any human, is wrong. So I worship God, but not Jesus, and no Muggle priest or bishop has noticed yet. On the other hand, I have no difficulty in respecting a fellow wizard, especially one who helped others and had the bad luck to get caught up in a political squabble and got killed for it. Moreover, if we hope to change the official views of the Church on magic, we'll have to work from the inside. Hiding works all right, but it would be better if we didn't have to. It keeps us hidden from each other as well as from the Muggles, too often."
Remembering how he had not recognized the king's servant Robert as a fellow wizard, Ancel had to agree with that practicality of approach at least. He was not wholly convinced by Petrus's statements; not that he thought the man had been deceived, but thinking of Jesus as a wizard instead of the Muggle charlatan he had long considered him would take substantial rearrangement of his own understanding.
By now it was late afternoon, nearly time for Petrus to attend vespers, and in any case Ancel needed to leave in order to reach Swinbroke again before dark. The same monk who had admitted him was sent to bring his horse, and as he waited, Petrus said delicately, "About the grant of revenues, sir Ancel?"
"Ever-practical, aren't you?" said Ancel. "I can appreciate that. I'll extend the charter for three lifetimes of my family, Petrus. St. Brigid's is safe. Draw up the document and bring it to me at Swinbroke next week; I'll sign it and seal it, my steward and man-at-arms can be witnesses. And when you're there, you can tell me whatever you may know about the henge on my land. I hadn't the time for that today, but I'm curious about it."
He swung up onto his horse and departed, the lowering sun making his fair hair appear almost red as he rode away. Abbot Petrus remained standing in the opened gateway, a slight frown upon his face as he watched the knight's figure diminish into the distance.
"Abbot?"
"Yes, Thomas?" Petrus pulled himself back to the daily concerns of his monks. A week was not long. When next he saw sir Ancel would be soon enough to warn him about the henge.