"Father Abbot Markwart is quite pleased with the young man," Jojonah remarked.
True enough, Siherton had to admit, and he understood that he would not win any debate he might wage against the selection of Avelyn as one of the Preparers. The position of the second Preparer remained wide open, though, and so the tall master decided then and there that he would use his energy to put forth a student better to his liking. Someone like Quintall, a young' man full of fire and full of life. And, because of that passion, because of worldly lusts, a man who could be controlled.
He was not surprised; his lip didn't quiver.
"Pray tell me, Master Siherton, was it peaceful?" he heard himself ask.
Master Jojonah was glad to hear the sympathetic question. Avelyn's lack of initial response to the news that his mother had died had lent credence to Siherton's complaints. "The messenger said that she died in her sleep,", Jojonah interrupted.
Master Siherton eyed his peer sternly, considering the lie, for the messenger, a young boy, had only delivered news of the death and had offered no details surrounding it. Master Jojonah hadn't even conversed with the messenger.
In a rare display of sympathy, with Jojonah glaring at him out of the corner of his brown eye, Siherton let it go.
Avelyn nodded, accepting the news.
"You will want to leave at once," Siherton offered, "to join your father at your mother's gravesite."
Avelyn stared at him incredulously.
"Or you may choose to stay," Jojonah put in immediately, seeing the lure.
If Avelyn left St.-Mere-Abelle for any reason, he would have to wait until the following year to enter. His reentry would be guaranteed, but his position as a Preparer — though he had no idea that he would be offered such a position or even that there was such a thing — would be lost.
"My mother is already buried, I assume," Avelyn responded to Siherton,
"and my father has surely left her grave to return home. Given the short time since their departure from St.-Mere-Abelle, he has yet a long road before him."
Master Siherton squinted ominously and leaned close over Avelyn, glaring openly. "Your mother has died, boy," he said slowly, accentuating each syllable.
"Do you care?"
The words hit young Avelyn hard. Did he care? He wanted to punch out at the tall master for even insinuating otherwise. He wanted to fly into a rage, tear the room — and anyone who tried to stop him — apart!
But that would be a disservice to Annalisa, Avelyn knew, an insult to the memory of the gentle woman. Avelyn's mother had lived in the light of God.
Avelyn had to believe that, or else all of her life — and all of his own life -
- would be no more than a lie. The reward for such a life, for such a good heart, was a better existence in a better place. Annalisa was with God now.
That thought bolstered the young man. He straightened his shoulders and looked squarely at the imposing Master Siherton.
"My mother knew that she would not make it home," he said quietly, aiming his words at Jojonah. "We all knew it. She lived on, in sickness, only to see me enter the Order of St.-Mere-Abelle. It was her glory that I join the Abellican Church, and I would be stealing that glory if I left now." He sucked in his breath, bolstering his declaration.
"The Order of St.-Mere-Abelle, God's Year 816," Brother Avelyn said without the slightest quiver in his voice. "That is my place. That is the vision that allowed Annalisa Desbris to pass on peacefully from this world."
Master Jojonah nodded, seeing the calm and logical reasoning, and at once impressed with, and frightened of, the depth of this young man's faith. It was obvious that Avelyn had loved his mother dearly, and yet, there was a sincerity in his. demeanor. In that, Jojonah could clearly see Siherton's point. Either Avelyn had a direct line to God or the young man simply had no idea of what it was to be human.
"May I go?" Avelyn asked.
The question caught Jojonah off guard, and as he considered it, he came to realize that Avelyn's stoicism was, perhaps, not so deeply rooted. "You will be excused from your duties this day," the master stated.
"No," Avelyn replied without hesitation. He bowed his head as soon as he realized that he had just spoken against a master's command, an offense that could lead to exile from the abbey. "Please allow me to continue my duties."
Jojonah looked to Siherton, who was shaking his head disgustedly. Without a word, the tall master stalked from the room.
Jojonah suspected that young Brother Avelyn should be careful in the coming weeks. Master Siherton would see to his dismissal if given any real cause. The gentle master hesitated for a long while, making sure that Siherton would be far away by the time that Avelyn left the room.
"As you wish, Brother Avelyn," Jojonah subsequently agreed. "Be away, then. You have a few minutes left for your midday meal."
Avelyn bowed deeply and exited the room.
Jojonah folded his hands on his desk and spent a long while staring at the closed door. What was it about Avelyn that really bothered Siherton? he wondered. Was it, as Siherton insisted, the young man's apparent inhumanity? Or was it something more profound? Was Avelyn, perhaps, a higher standard, a shadowy mirror, held up before all the monks of St.-Mere-Abelle, a testament of true faith that seemed so rare in these times, even in the holy abbey?
That thought shook Jojonah as he looked around at his decorated chamber, at the beautiful tapestry he had commissioned from the gallery of Porvon dan Guardinio, among the most respected artists in all the world. He considered the gold leaf highlighting the carved hardwood of the room's support beams, the rich rug from some exotic land, the cushiony chairs, the many baubles and trinkets on his vast bookshelf, every one of them worth more gold than a common laborer would make in a year.
Piety, dignity, poverty, that was the pledge offered upon entering the Order of St.-Mere-Abelle. That was the standard. Jojonah glanced around the room again, reminding himself that most of the other masters, even some of the tenth-year immaculates, had chambers more richly adorned.
Piety, dignity, poverty.
But pragmatism, too, should be part of that pledge, so said Father Abbot Markwart, and so had declared the abbey's. previous leaders, dating back more than two centuries. In Honce-the-Bear, wealth equalled power, and without power, how could the Order hope to influence the lives of the common folk? Wasn't God better served by strength than by weakness?
So went the widely accepted argument that allowed for relaxing some aspects of the holy pledge.
Still, Master Jojonah could see why a student such as Avelyn Desbris would so unnerve Master Siherton.
That night, Avelyn retired to his room, thoroughly exhausted, both emotionally and physically. He had spent all his waking hours at demanding work, volunteering for the most difficult parts of each task. He had lost count of the buckets he had cranked up from the well — somewhere near fifty — and had gone right from that heavy work to removing loose stones near to the northern end of the abbey's top wall, pulling them free and piling them neatly for the masons who would follow the next day.
Only the call to vespers, the ceremony heralding eventide, had interrupted Avelyn's frantic pace. He went quietly to the service, then skipped his evening meal altogether and went right to his
chamber, a five-foot-square cubicle with a single stool, which doubled as a table for Avelyn's candle, and a cot — little more than a flat board and a blanket — that folded down from one wall.
The work was ended now, and the ache settled in. Despite his weariness, Avelyn Desbris could hardly sleep. Images of his mother flooded his thoughts; he wondered if he might see a vision of her now, a visitation of her spirit before it went to its place in heaven. Would Annalisa come to say goodbye to her youngest child, or had she already said her farewells to Avelyn in the courtyard outside of St.-Mere-Abelle?
Avelyn rolled off the cot and fumbled with his flint and steel, finally getting the candle lit. He glanced around in the shadowy light, as if expecting Annalisa to be standing in a comer waiting for him.
She wasn't, to Avelyn's ultimate disappointment.
The young man settled on the edge of his cot, head bowed, hands resting on his sore thighs. He felt the first tears leaking from his eyes and tried to deny them. To cry would be a weakness, Avelyn reasoned, a lack of faith. If what he believed, what he truly held in his heart, could not sustain him in a time of death, then of what value was it? The Abellican Church, the ancient scriptures, promised heaven to those deserving, and who could be more deserving than gentle and generous Annalisa Desbris?
A tear rolled down Avelyn's cheek, then another. He dropped his head lower, brought his hands up. to cover his eyes, his wet eyes.
A sob lifted Avelyn's bowed shoulders. He tried to deny it, tried to fight back. He recited the Prayer of the Dead, the Prayer of the Faithful, the Prayer of Eternal Promise, all in a row, forcing his voice to hold steady.
Still the tears came; every so often his even tone was broken by a sniffle or a sob.
He went through the recitals again, and again. He prayed with all his heart, wrapping the words around images of his mother, often intoning her name between lines of verse. He was on the floor then, but did not know how he had gotten there. On the floor and curled up like a baby, wanting his mother, praying for his mother.
Finally, after more than an hour, Avelyn composed himself and sat back on the cot, taking several deep breaths to fight away the last of the sobs. He thought long and hard then, considering his grief, searching his soul for the weakness that had come into his faith.
Soon enough, he had his answer, and Avelyn was glad. He was not crying, he realized, for Annalisa, for he did indeed hold faith that she had passed on to a deserved better existence. He was crying for himself, for his brothers and sisters, for his father, for all who knew Annalisa Desbris and would not be graced by her presence in this life again.
Avelyn could accept that. His faith was intact and solid, and so he was not desecrating the memory of his mother. He moved to blow out the candle, then changed his mind and settled back on the cot. Still his eyes searched the corners of the shadowy room for his mother's spirit.
Perhaps he would find her in his dreams.
Two men walked quietly away from Brother Avelyn's closed door. "Are you satisfied?" Master Jojonah asked Master Siherton when they were far away.
Indeed Siherton had been pleased to hear Avelyn crying, to know that the too — dedicated young man was possessed of human emotions, but the sound of Avelyn's sobs had not changed the stern master's general attitude toward Avelyn.
He gave a slight nod to Jojonah and started away.
"I have been given the blessings of Father Abbot Markwart to show young Brother Avelyn the stones," Jojonah called after him.
Siherton stopped dead in his tracks, fought down the angry protest that rose in his throat, and then nodded again, only slightly, and continued on his way.
It was settled then. Brother Avelyn Desbris would be one of the Preparers.
Avelyn tried to keep his head bowed, his eyes to the floor, as befitted his lowly station, but he couldn't help notice some of the splendors that surrounded him as he followed Master Jojonah through the winding corridors of the Abbot's Maze, the most private and revered place in all of St.-Mere-Abelle, and one that a first-year novice would certainly not expect to visit.
Jojonah's explanation for the tour had been weak, some remark about an area that needed cleaning. After only a few weeks in the abbey, Avelyn knew enough about the routine to understand that students much older and more experienced than he were the normal choice for any tasks, however menial, in the Abbot's Maze. He also knew that nothing special was going on, that many of the older students would have been available to Master Jojonah.
His questions were kept private though, for it was not his place to ask anything of the masters. Only to obey, and so he was, walking as quietly as he could beside the plump man, keeping his head bowed but still stealing an occasional glance at the splendor: the gold leaf bordering every side door, the wondrous and intricate carvings on every beam of wood, the mosaic tile patterns on the floors, the tapestries, so rich in detail that Avelyn figured he could spend hours and hours lingering over but one of them. Master Jojonah talked constantly, though he said nothing of interest — slight remarks about the weather, a storm that had hit twenty years before, the passing of his favorite baker in the town of St.-Mere-Abelle, a surprisingly off-color remark about the man's "lusty" wife. None of it diverted Avelyn's attention from the wonders of the place, though he did listen somewhat, fearing to miss any questions directed his way.
They stopped before a heavy door — and what a door! Avelyn could not help but lift his eyes at the sight of the thing, at the layers and layers of painted carvings, scenes of battles, of Saint Abelle being burned at the stake, of the healing hands of Mother Bastibule. Scenes of angels conquering demons, of the mighty demon dactyl screaming in agony as its own lava poured over it, consuming it. Scenes of the Halo, the heavenly gift, enwrapping all the others, an oval because of the angle at which it was portrayed. It started, if such a complete thing could be said to start, at the bottom left corner of the door, and led the observer's eye upward across the portal to the top right. And on the way, as Avelyn's eyes scanned, it seemed to him as if the history of the world, of the faith, unfolded to him, the images packed so that one led to another easily, with enough distinction so that each made an impact, however brief, like the flowing of time.
He wanted to kneel and pray; he wanted to ask who the artist — or artists; for certainly no one man could have created all of this — might be, but realized before the words left his mouth that any name would be inconsequential, for certainly the carvers and illuminators who had done this had done so at the explicit intervention of God. He alone, who called all the men and women of the world His children, might have done this.