Where the Stones Sing (10 page)

Brother Albert looked at Kai, his face so sad that Kai, even in her own misery, wanted to comfort him.

‘I’m sorry, Kai,’ he said. ‘There was nothing I could do. He has gone to his Lord. Go, get some charred wood from the fireplace, and we will mark the sign of the cross on the sheet.’

Kai did as she was asked, but even as they wrapped Jack carefully in clean white linen, somewhere, very deep inside, she could not believe that he was gone. It couldn’t be true. Not Jack, so full of life, so happy all the time. Brother Albert said that the illness had gone on so long it had weakened
everything
– his heart, his lungs – and he had lost the strength to live. He had died in his sleep while Tom had struggled to stay alive. For once, Jack had managed to leave quietly. Nobody had even noticed him go.

Tom had seen Brother Albert draw the covers over his friend’s face and, like Kai, knew what it meant. He turned his face to the wall and said nothing.

Brother Albert came over and laid his hand on his shoulder.

‘He is gone to Paradise, child, he is with the Holy Angels and Saints.’

Tom still said nothing. But when Brother Albert left and Kai went to try to talk to him he whispered, ‘Never mind the garden of Paradise and the angels and saints. Jack would
hate to be surrounded by people who behaved themselves all the time. He is gone to the Elysian Fields, Kai. He is racing his horse there now, a black one with a white star, and he is happy. I’m going to try to think of that when I think of him.’

They were still sitting there when Brother Benedict came in, his face wet with tears. When he saw that Jack had died, he cried out, ‘Glory be to the Lord God of Hosts! The two souls have gone together to the Lord! Prior Robert died this morning at dawn!’

Edward Accused

t was a cold clear day in late autumn. The
cathedral
was filled with the tolling of the bell and the sorrowful voices of the canons. The sadness of the singers seemed to echo in the cathedral, as if other voices were joining in, mourning the loss of the prior and the orphan boy. Kai shivered as she sat with only Roland as company on the bench where the four of them had sung together only a short time before. In the silence between the singing, she was almost sure she could hear the whispers, the muffled voices that she had heard on her first day. There had been other times when she thought she had heard the voices and laughter in the cathedral. As time went on, she heard it more often, and the laughter of the hidden children seemed to be becoming louder, as if more children were joining in. But she told herself that she must be imagining things.
Miracles
and magic were nothing but tricks and deception.

Now the canons had finished, on a final sombre note, and they filed out of the cathedral. Prior Robert had been greatly loved by all of them. He had always been fair, had always been kind; had always known what to do in a crisis. He would be badly missed. But as well as being sad, the canons were frightened. There was a buzz of tension in the priory, which seemed new and strange in such a tranquil place.

As Roland and Kai left the cathedral, they noticed Brother Reynaph and Brother Bertrand whispering to each other in the cloister. They stopped abruptly as soon the children came near them. A little further on, Brother Malcolm and Brother Nicholas were also deep in conversation, a
conversation
which also stopped as soon as they noticed the children approaching. It seemed as if everyone was
watching
and waiting and listening. But then nothing was normal anymore. Nobody knew quite how to go about the ordinary business of daily life. It was as if, with the loss of the prior, the canons were like sheep without a shepherd. Or, as Roland put it more unkindly, a flock of headless chickens.

Later, Brother Albert explained the air of panic to Kai and Tom, ‘It is not just that we have lost a leader that we all loved. Now, we have to elect a new prior as quickly as possible. The king will try to take the priory from us if we are left without a leader for too long. It is the way the law works – the king is the lord of the land and the lands go back to him if they are not claimed. It’s ridiculous, but it’s the way things are.’

Kai frowned. ‘But I don’t understand – can’t the priory or
the brothers just claim the land? Instead of the prior?’

‘No, the land is held by the prior in the name of the priory. It has happened before that the escheator – that’s the king’s agent – has tried to claim the lands. He can do that if there is too much of a delay in the election of a new prior.’

‘But that’s so unfair,’ said Tom. ‘Who is the escheator, anyway?’

‘That’s one good thing – there isn’t one at the moment. Some people say that Roland’s father will be the next one. And, at the moment, he’s in England. But he is due back at any time. And whoever it is, and unfair or not, that’s what the escheator will do. It’s his job to try to get as much land as possible for the king. So the election for the new prior will be tomorrow morning.’

Brother Albert sighed. ‘And I can only hope that Brother Malcolm doesn’t win and become our prior!’

The meeting to elect the new prior was held in the
chapter
house, after lauds on Sunday. Kai went to the infirmary to be with Tom while the monks met to vote. The two of them sat in silence. They sometimes found it hard to talk to one another since the death of Jack. It was as if there was nothing left to say. Kai wondered if she could have nursed Jack better, and felt guilty because she had not been with him on his
last night. Tom wondered if his friend had caught the plague from him.

Brother Albert had tried to reassure them both, saying that there was nothing anyone could have done to save Jack and that the type of plague he had caught was not the same as the one Tom had suffered from. ‘And Kai,’ he had continued, ‘nobody could have worked harder or taken better care of Jack and Tom. And you know, you both gave him a very great gift. When he died, he knew that he was greatly loved.’

That’s all very well, thought Tom. But it didn’t stop them missing Jack. Looking at Kai’s tear-stained face, he decided he couldn’t stand sitting like this any longer.

‘Let’s sneak out and see if we can hear what’s happening,’ he said. ‘I can’t bear to stay here looking at Jack’s empty bed.’

‘But you are still sick and I’m supposed to look after you. And make sure you
do
stay resting,’ protested Kai.

Tom snorted. ‘I’m fine. I’ll feel sicker if I have to wait and hear that Brother Malcolm is the new prior. Imagine how much more obnoxious that would make his pet Roland! He’s bad enough as it is!’

They crept out of the infirmary and went to the chapter house. There, they lurked around outside. When they heard the cheer on the other side of the door, Tom put his ear up against it in an attempt to hear what was going on. As a result, he fell over when Brother Albert opened it abruptly. But Brother Albert just smiled. 

‘Aha, I was just coming to tell you the news. Stephen of Derby is our new prior,’ he said. ‘And Kai, you are invited to share in the celebration breakfast he is giving in the refectory. Tom, you are going to go straight back to bed. Kai will bring you some sweet things from the table. Well, we can breathe again. It’s such a relief. The vote went for Stephen, eleven to two. And that included Malcolm voting for himself.’

‘Who else voted for Brother Malcolm?’ asked Kai. Brother Albert snorted. ‘Oh, Brother Nicholas, of course. But that was just because he has had arguments with Brother Stephen about how to decorate the cathedral. Brother Nicholas has terrible taste. Now, the ceremony to make Brother Stephen prior will be held next Sunday, and Kai, we will have to work hard. We must practise some new pieces for the choir for it.’

‘I’ll do it happily,’ said Kai, thinking of how awful it would have been if they had had to sing for the inauguration of Brother Malcolm. But then she remembered that Jack would not be singing with them. Suddenly the world went dark again.

Before there could be the celebrations for the new prior, there had to be a funeral for the old one. Jack and the prior were buried at the same time, on the eve of All Souls, and the funeral was horrible. Tom was still too ill to come to sing in the choir, though he had fought hard with Brother Albert to
be allowed to do so. Kai struggled through the singing with Roland and with two boys from St Patrick’s choir dragged in hastily to fill Jack and Tom’s parts. They were two boys that they had often had skirmishes with in the streets of Dublin, and the pair of them spent all of the time they were not
singing
making faces at Kai and Roland. Somehow being angry with them helped Kai through the Mass, but as soon as it was over she ran from the cathedral. It was a wet and miserable day and the streets were full of pig and goose traders, for the Martinmas fair, held on the 11
^th
of November, was coming up soon. All of Dublin smelled of pig and goose droppings. The pigs squealed like the Dolocher and kept getting loose and barging through the streets. Kai’s ears hurt. Her head hurt. Her heart hurt most of all. This is what it must be like to be in hell, she thought.

She ran. She knew she should go back to keep Tom
company
in the infirmary, but the thought of the two of them sitting there without Jack was too much to bear. She didn’t know where she wanted to run to, but she finally found herself at the small door in the wall at Giles the
stonemason’s
yard, and she beat on it until her fingers were sore. She really wanted to see her brother, to be enveloped in one of his bear-like hugs. Indeed, she had thought he would have come to the funeral Mass, but he had been nowhere to be seen in the crowd.

The door finally opened, just by a crack. Standing there
was Joan, Master Giles’s daughter, her face smudged with dirt and tearstained. Kai’s first feeling was one of astonishment. Joan was always very neat and clean in her ways. The girl’s face crumpled up when she saw Kai.

‘What is it?’ Kai asked.

Joan burst into tears.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t let you in – my father is so angry!’

‘What’s happened? Where’s Edward?’

More tears. Then Joan said, ‘Listen, I’m not supposed to go out, but come in for a moment; there’s no one in the kitchen. Come quickly so nobody sees you. It’s Edward …’

‘Is he sick? Is it the plague?’ Kai felt her stomach turn over with fear.

‘No, nothing like that … but come in here and I’ll tell you …’

The two girls made their way across the yard and into the kitchen. Joan kept glancing over her shoulder, afraid she would be spotted by one of her parents. There was no sign of Edward working in the yard.

In the kitchen, Kai took Joan by the arm and said, ‘Now, tell me what has happened to my brother.’

Joan took a breath and began, faltering slightly as her tears overcame her.