Pagan's Vows (23 page)

Raymond seems to be thinking. His hair shines like gold in the lamplight. His skin looks very pale. ‘If you wait until the abbot comes back,’ he says, ‘I may not be a novice any more when you tell him.’

‘So?’

‘So you won’t forget about me, will you? You’ll tell me what happens?’

‘Well of course I will!’ God, Raymond. ‘How could I possibly forget about you?’

Silence falls. I’m beginning to get a bit cold, sitting here under the trees. On the damp earth. Without my cowl or scapular.

Maybe it’s time to go in.

‘We should probably move now, Raymond. We’re running out of time.’ Scrambling to my feet; dusting off my robe.

But his hand shoots up and drags me back down again.

‘Wait,’ he says. ‘Wait, I – I just want to ask you something . . .’

Pause. Well, come on. What is it?

‘Ask me what?’

‘About women.’ He swallows. ‘Have you – have you ever – actually – you know . . .’

‘Bedded one?’

‘Yes.’ Even in this light, I can see the blush. ‘Have you ever done that?’

Oh Lord. Here we go. ‘Yes.’

‘You have?’

‘Yes.’

‘A lot?’

‘No.’

‘How many times?’

‘Jesus, Raymond, I don’t know.’ What a question! ‘Twice? No, three times.’

‘What . . .’ He hesitates. ‘What was it like?’

What was it like? I’ll tell you what it was like. It was like hell, the first time. Back in Jerusalem, when I was fourteen, and that girl and her friends . . . But I won’t think about that. Anyway, the second time was better. Last year, on the ship to Marseilles, when Roland was seasick and I met that widow. Marguesia the widow. She was nice. Old, but nice. I wonder what happened to her?

‘It’s all right, I suppose.’ Thinking about the last time, with Marguesia. But I’d better not dwell on it. If I do, I’ll just get hot and bothered. ‘Actually, it can be a lot of fun.’

Raymond sighs.

‘There are so many things I haven’t done,’ he murmurs. ‘And if I become a monk, tomorrow . . . well, I’ll never do them, will I? Not ever.’

Uh-oh. ‘What’s the matter, Raymond? Don’t you want to be a monk?’

‘I suppose I do. It’s just – I don’t know.’ He stares down at the lamp. ‘I just wish I was more like you, that’s all. I wish I’d done everything.’

Done everything? What’s that supposed to mean?

‘Raymond, I haven’t done much, you know. I’ve wasted half my life messing around.’

‘But you’ve
done
things!’ he cries, and startles himself so much that he quickly covers his mouth. We sit for a moment, listening.

Nothing stirs.

‘I’m going to miss you,’ he finally remarks. ‘I never thought I would, but I will. It’s a shame that – well – you know.’

‘Yes, I know.’ It’s a shame that we didn’t work this out earlier. Watching him as he prods the ground with a stick, a scowl on his face, a dead leaf entangled in his hair. He looks very young for his age, like all the former oblates: very young, but also, in a peculiar fashion, very old. I don’t know what it is. Something to do with the lack of worldly experience, combined with the dead weight of long hours in church.

Poor sod. Poor miserable sod. He doesn’t belong here, in this desolate graveyard of a monastery; he should be out managing estates, with his father.

‘I’ll miss you too, Raymond.’ Carefully avoiding his eye. ‘It’s just not going to be the same, without you.’

And we make our way slowly back to the guest-house.

Chapter 27

H
ere comes Raymond. He looks pale, but composed. The church is so quiet that every one of his footsteps echoes around the vaults like the crack of a whip. He’s carrying his Act of Profession in both hands, reverently, the way you’d carry a fragment of the True Cross.

He stops in front of the altar, where Montazin is waiting for him.

Poor Raymond. I can see him shrinking back as Montazin reaches for the roll of parchment. How awful to have that tape-worm reading out your Act of Profession, when you know exactly what he’s been doing. The sonorous voice booms away (
‘
. . .
stabilitas loci . . . conversio morum . . .’)
, while the monks yawn and fidget, and the novices nudge each other, and Bernard Incentor wipes his eyes.

I feel so sorry for Bernard. He and Raymond haven’t been apart since they were six days old; they even shared the same wet-nurse, Raymond tells me. But now Clement says that Bernard isn’t ready to become a monk. So the two friends are separated, and it seems pointlessly cruel, even though it’s just what you’d expect from a heartless brute like Clement. God, how I hate that man, sometimes.

‘
. . .
Dominus det vobis societatem electorum suorum.’
Montazin finishes reading the Act, solemnly lays it on the altar, and withdraws at a stately pace, his chiselled nose in the air. Anyone would think that he was swearing in a monarch. But I don’t mind watching him swank about, any more, because I know that his days among the Elect are well and truly numbered. Enjoy it while you can, pus-head. You’re heading for the biggest fall since Lucifer’s.

‘Suscipe me secundum . . .’
Raymond prostrates himself, and tries to recite the versicle. But the poor thing is so nervous that his voice comes out as a strangled squawk. So he clears his throat and starts again.

‘Suscipe me secundum eloquium tuum, Domine, et vivam, et
ne confundas me ab exspectatione mea . . .’

Hah! And there’s Guilabert, all dressed up in the abbot’s cope. Holding the abbot’s pastoral staff in his pudgy hand. As if he could ever stand in for the abbot! God, if only the abbot were here. How am I ever going to wait until Tuesday? It’s such a strain, walking around with this letter tucked into my drawers. I’m so scared I’m going to lose it before I have a chance to show it to him.

‘Suscipe me secundum eloquium tuum . . .’
Raymond repeats the versicle, and prostrates himself for the second time. He’s getting more confident, now.

I wonder how he’ll cope as a fully fledged monk? It’ll be awful, sleeping in the same dormitory as Montazin. And Sicard. And Aeldred, too! God, imagine sharing a room with Aeldred! Enough to make your flesh crawl. I know
I
couldn’t do it.

‘Suscipe me secundum eloquium tuum . . .’
Raymond’s voice, high-pitched and breathless. Down he goes, flat on the floor again, racing through his third recitation as if he’s trying to win a prize. When he finishes he scrambles to his feet, and Guilabert also rises, hoisting his bulk off the abbot’s throne with little grunts, like a pig. He comes forward until he’s standing beside Raymond. Clears his throat. Raises his staff.

‘Kyrie eleison
,
’
he bleats, and everyone makes the standard response: ‘Kyrie eleison.’

‘Christe eleison.’

‘Christe eleison.’

‘Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum . . .’

Only Guilabert could make the ‘Our Father’ sound like a list of farriers’ supplies. He’s even mispronouncing the Latin. Glancing at Clement, who looks as if he’s just bitten into a sour grape. (Nobody hates a bungled inflection as much as Clement.) He catches me staring at him, and rolls his eyes – something I’ve never seen him do before. It’s almost as if he’s trying to say: ‘Listen to that hopeless bungler’.

How very odd.

‘. . . Et ne nos inducas in tentationem sed libera nos a malo,
amen,’
Guilabert intones, and now it’s time for Psalm Fifty-one. The terrible, the unbearable ‘
Miserere
’
.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy goodness, according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies wipe out my transgressions.

‘Miserere mei, Deus, secundum misericordiam tuam
secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum dele iniquitatem
meam . . .’

As the deep, gentle chorus rises slowly, like incense, towards the golden stars on the ceiling, Bernard Blancus comes forward with Raymond’s new cowl. Guilabert blesses it, and with his head bowed beneath the pure strains of the psalm he manages to achieve a certain degree of dignity.

‘Tibi soli peccavi et quod malum est coram te feci.’

Turning, he places the cowl on Raymond’s head, and kisses him on both cheeks. Once. Twice. Three times. The chorus swells and fades, and a shower of silvery notes seems to enfold Raymond like a shaft of light, as all at once the music and the images merge into one glorious, inexpressible sensation: the glitter of the altar screen, the soaring voices, the smell of incense, the graceful and pious embrace, the loving smile of the Holy Virgin, painted in rainbow colours above the choir, as she bends down from her heavenly throne with her hand raised in blessing.

God. Oh God. It’s so beautiful.

‘Ut manifesteris iustis in sententia tua, rectus in ludicio
tuo . . .’

Let Thy majesty be justified in Thy sentence, vindicated when Thou wouldst condemn.

Slowly, one by one, the monks leave their places, and approach the altar, and give Raymond the kiss of peace. They move so smoothly, identical in their long black robes, that it almost looks like a dance – or like the majestic movement of stars across the sky. But when it’s Clement’s turn he breaks the rhythm, because he can hardly walk now, and he drags himself step by step across the floor of the church, his walking-stick rapping against the tiles, until he reaches Raymond in front of the altar. Transferring the stick to his left hand, he leans forward to kiss Raymond’s cheek – and suddenly they’re hugging each other, very tight, and it feels as if a steel splinter has pierced me right through the heart.

Because I know: suddenly I know. I know that I’m never going to be up there in front of that altar, receiving the kiss of peace. I’m never going to present my Act of Profession. I’m never going to do it because I – because –

Because I’m never going to be a monk.

It’s so clear to me, now. They’ll never let me in, no matter how hard I try. And why should they? I don’t belong here. I can’t even imagine myself as one of these men, shuffling round and round the same solemn path, day after day, year after year, with nothing to sustain me but my love of God, which I have to admit is in a pretty sad state, at the moment. Not at all the flourishing, healthy faith that it should be. In fact I can’t help wondering if He actually knows what’s going on down here, sometimes. I can’t help thinking that people like me – well, that we’re too insignificant to attract His attention.

‘Ecce in culpa natus sum et in peccato concepit me mater
mea.’

Behold, I was shaped in wickedness, and in sin hath my mother conceived me.

It’s the story of my life, that verse. Shaped in wickedness, conceived in sin. I’ll never make it at Saint Martin’s; I’ve known that, deep in my gut, ever since I joined. Nothing’s been holding me here except the prospect of avenging myself. But when Montazin is disgraced, what 226 shall I do then? Where shall I go? There’s nothing out there, absolutely nothing. And if Roland stays . . . if Roland . . .

Roland. Oh God. He’s the reason I came here in the first place, and now – Christ, I can’t bear it. Where is he? He’s gone. He’s just not there any more, not for me. Not for anyone. He’s an empty shell, and even the shell looks different. Hollow-eyed. Stooping. Wasted. Like a candle that’s been snuffed out. Like a walking corpse. I can’t – oh God, oh God, I’ve lost him, I’ve lost Roland, and I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it any more. Oh God, why are you doing this? Why are you doing this to me? I can’t even sing, or I’ll choke on my own tears. Trying to hide them. Trying to stop them, with one hand over my mouth, but the psalm goes on and on, so anguished and poignant and heart-rending, and it’s going to kill me, I just know it is. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free spirit.

A hand slips into mine.

It’s Durand, of course: he squeezes hard. I can’t see his face, through the tears, but I know what he’s doing. Staring at me. Peering at me. Why doesn’t he leave me alone? When I try to pull my hand away he holds on tight, and starts to stroke it. Don’t do that, God, please, don’t do that! You’re only making it worse.

The sacrifices of God are a troubled spirit; a broken and contrite heart; O God, shalt Thou not despise.

And the psalm goes on. Phrase by agonising phrase. Winding its way to the end of the office, as it slowly tears me to pieces.