Hurdy Gurdy Read online

  And the lips blacken

  You stink like a sewer

  And your sinews stiffen

  And your chest gasps

  And your breath rasps

  And the teeth clatter

  And the throat rattles

  And the spirit has fled

  And the flesh is dead meat

  Then you’re tossed in a hole

  And no one remembers your soul.

  IV. Love in God’s Garden

  I must be Abbot Benedict’s favourite novice, for he often calls me to his side, and has me serve him in small, personal matters – to fetch him water, or stack his fire, or empty his piss-pot, or rub him all over, naked as he was born, with duck fat, into the creases and crevices of his corpulent form, to ease the aches from his bones, to ease the stiffness from his stiffest parts, wash the grime from his feet, pour his ale – because, he tells me, there is dignity in serving a master well.

  Often, in the evening, he has me play the Hurdy Gurdy, for him alone. Perhaps I play ‘Sed Diabolus’ – ‘Only the Devil Laughed’, or ‘Cum Erubuerint’ – ‘From this Wicked Fall’. Else some secular song like ‘Reynard the Fox’ or ‘Sweet Kitty’.

  He enjoys my battles with the instrument – this strange tormented box of taut cat-guts, droning strings and melody strings, rotating wooden wheel to sound them, and cranky handle. The Abbot closes his heavenward eyes and nods to himself, as he attends the loud skirmish of music and noise.

  He says that in the grind, groan, drone, screech and squawk of the Hurdy Gurdy, he can discern the motions of the spheres, earthquakes, erupting volcanoes, and the strike of meteors. And, beyond that, he hears the eternal battles of mankind – between good and evil, clarity and confusion, order and chaos, wit and stupidity, skill and ineptitude, pain and pleasure, harmony and discord. And he senses these struggles finally resolved for the good, with the melody of virtue rising just above the drone of sin, and the relentless, demented hiss of Lucifer being overpowered by God’s good tunes.

  When the Abbot ventures from our monastery to nearby churches, he often takes me as helper, with him trotting on Caritas, his large white mare with chestnut dapples and mane, and me scampering behind on my own good feet, breathless to keep up.

  He goes out to preach in neighbouring parishes. He preaches loudly. And he preaches sternly. And he preaches long. Now, I know several of his best and severest sermons. Most by heart –

  i. ‘The Chain of Angels’

  ii. ‘The Snake in the Garden’

  iii. ‘Gluttony’

  iv. ‘There’s a Man Going Round Taking Names’

  v. ‘Jonah is Swallowed by the Whale’

  vi. ‘Weep, Vile Sinner, for Judgement is Near’

  vii. ‘Repent before Death Knocks at your Door’

  viii. ‘The Monsters and Demons that Serve Satan in Hell’

  But the sermon I like the best, that I never tire of hearing, is entitled ‘The Marriage Bed is a Garden’.

  For, by this helpful, inviting narrative, Abbot Benedict commands man and woman to lie together. And make children. With their bodies. For that is the holy work that God has assigned them.

  When man and wife lie together, it is labour in God’s garden.

  For Our Lord so loved man that he gave him a special tool, a dibber, to plant his seed. And God so loved woman that he gave her a secret pot, for man to plant his seed in, and have it grow.

  So the gardener tends his garden. And both are in grace, and doing God’s bidding. Provided they are first blessed in marriage in the eyes of God. Then they may join their bodies in union, for the procreation of children. For it is their duty.

  Then there can be no sin.

  Provided they are not joined for frivolity or carnality. Nor for mere selfish pleasure. But only to beget children.

  Except that they should not lie together on a Wednesday, Friday, or Saturday, nor the Lord’s Day, nor Advent, nor Lent, nor Whitsun week, nor a fast day, nor a feast day. Nor Christ Mass time. Nor the day before. Nor the day after. Nor the day after that.

  Otherwise all times and every time are proper in the eyes of God. For the proper planting of man’s seed. In the right manner. In the proper place.

  Provided it is the night-time. And dark has fallen. And the candles are snuffed out. So there is no skin to be seen. Lest the eyes loiter to look, lingering to feast their lust on flesh.

  But take good care the deed is done fast. And just the one time.

  So long as the wife is not pregnant, nor bleeding, nor suckling, nor too old to bear children. Because, then, the planting would have no benefit but only give idle pleasure.

  There is no sin to the couple lying together, unbuckled, unlaced and unbuttoned. Provided they never uncover their full nakedness to display their filth-hood complete.

  Just so long as the man lies upon the woman, and does not take her from behind like a beast, or place himself, or herself, in any other unnatural posture, or lay mouth upon mouth, or mouth upon any other part. And that nothing is laid bare, privy to curious fingers.

  For the mouth has no place in the marriage bed. Let alone the tongue. No more than the hands. For the fingers are the Devil’s soldiers.

  And the Book of Penitential Punishment lays down that a man who performs the fornication of the lips upon a woman must pay full penance for five years. Provided it is the first time. But seven years if it has become his lewd custom.

  And the man who spills his seed in the mouth of a woman must pay full penance for five years if it is his first time. But seven years if it is his sorry custom.

  For the man must take good care of his seed. For it is the Good Lord’s seed-corn, entrusted to him. So it must never be scattered carelessly, nor laid to waste, but only sowed, like corn in the new-ploughed furrow, to the fit and proper place.

  And the man must not express his seed over and over. But only the one time in any day. For more often is plain lustful.

  But woe betide the man who lies with another man. Or woman who lies with another woman. For man must not be meddled with man, nor woman mixed up with woman, contra naturam.

  And no person must ever contrive a solitary pleasure, in their own embrace, for this torments morals, denies sense, and tangles nature.

  And for sins of these kinds, the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire out of Heaven.

  Praise be to God.

  ‘So, brethren,’ Abbot Benedict concludes, scowling down upon the crestfallen congregation, ‘go forth and multiply.’

  But on our way back to the monastery, as I jog alongside his trotting mount, he shares some truths with me that he had held back from the flock of believers.

  ‘I have to warn the peasants. For the acts of love yield terrible, awful pleasures,’ he confides.

  ‘They do?’

  ‘Yes, yet the bodily tools of love, and the pleasures, are equally available to all – poor and wealthy, master and servant, wise and stupid, moral and immoral …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What do you think of that, Diggory?’

  ‘Is it not another example of God’s great bounty?’

  ‘No,’ he snaps. ‘It is an awful, terrible equality. For it defies rank. It mocks morality. And it sneers at wealth.’

  ‘It does?’

  For it flatters the poor to believe themselves as deserving as the rich, and suffers the rich to feel like the poor. And it rewards the bold more than the humble. So there is no moral or justice in it.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘But that’s not the worst of it.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘The worst of it is beauty.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Beauty is an ugly thing. For it is a great wealth. Yet it is given unearned to the undeserving. Often to the poor. Mostly to the young. And often to those weak, like women. Who have shown no virtue to gain it. And then the world favours those of fair countenance above those of good birth, and makes them think themselves better than they are, and rise
above their station.’

  ‘Oh …’ I remark. Obviously, I had not discerned the morals of it.

  ‘So, the poor and the low and the beautiful must be battered down. They do not have the same rights and entitlements as their betters. And they must be warned off from rolling around, pleasuring themselves in their bodies. Besides, their bodies are not theirs to play with. For they do not own them.’

  ‘They don’t?’

  ‘No, they only have them briefly. On a life-time’s loan from the Lord. And the human body is a holy instrument, divinely designed. So it is never a plaything, to pleasure peasants …’

  And he sinks his heels into the barrelled ribs of the horse, stirring him to a canter, leaving me breathless in his wake.

  V. It Rains Scorpions and the Earth Bleeds

  Our dusk supper that day took longer than usual to consume. And longer still to digest. For it lay heavy in our thoughts, uneasy on our stomachs. And the lengthy chewing had challenged some of the more elderly jaws.

  We had debated what we were eating long and hard, but could secure no easy agreement. Still, we found more pleasure in our round of guessing than in the food itself. There were strong clues. And yet a knotty tangle of mysteries too –

  i. We were not gathered in the refectory but in the misericord, where the eating of meat is allowed.

  ii. It was a meat day – not a Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, nor Advent, nor in Lent, when the eating of animals is forbidden.

  iii. Although we brothers are denied the flesh of a four-legged beast, we are permitted the offal.

  iv. There was much yellowish, globular fat to it, and pale skin.

  v. It carried a gamey savour like goat.

  vi. But with a cheesy after-taste too.

  vii. It held pieces that resembled a plump finger or shrunken man’s part.

  viii. Floating on the surface were strands of grey wool.

  ix. It was flavoured with rosemary.

  Finally, Brother Luke, our cook, was called out from his kitchen, his glistening pink face screwed to a frown, to answer to our sustained curiosity. He declared our supper was stewed sheep’s udder in herb gravy, with barley gruel.

  Thanks be to God.

  So the longer lumps were the ewe’s nipples – or teats – which, being designed tough, to resist the teeth of lambs, were as challenging to man’s.

  It could have been worse, but some brothers left the most part, for it did not delight everyone. And as we sat in our places at the long table, and toyed with our spoons, and wished for steamed carp, or ox kidney, or blood sausage instead, or gazed sadly down on our bowls, Abbot Benedict scraped back his chair and stood to address us.

  He wore a terrible distracted blankness on his blanched face. He said that he had an awful truth to relate. And he could not hide it from us any longer.

  He said this –

  ‘God is sorely angered with you.’

  See our dismay. Feel our fear. Hear our sorrow.

  ‘With us?’ we cried in disbelief.

  ‘With you,’ he confirmed.

  The Lord is not minded to forgive us, and neither is he.

  Then Brother John broke the silence. He howled, and wailed. Brother Joshua cracked his head on the table-top. Brother Mark ground his teeth loud as rasp on stone. Some stamped their feet in frenzy. Some fainted in frights. Scalding tears tumbled down our burning cheeks.

  The Abbot raised his hand to hush us. He told us how it was –

  God had unleashed a pox that was advancing upon us.

  A pestilence.

  A terrible disease.

  Unknown to man before.

  Without any known cure.

  And it would surely reach us.

  And that since we were bound by the example of Saint Odo to take in the sick and care for them, the disease would surely visit us.

  The Abbot said it was therefore a time for all men to consider their conduct and repent, for their death and judgement might be close, and that it was a terrible thing to die badly, to enter eternity unready and unprepared.

  He warned that time was short. That those amongst us who were heavily freighted by sin should make immediate confession, then make their reparation by suffering. He spoke of the many opportunities for pain and remedies of torment – fasting, crawling on all fours, mortifications, including scourging ourselves with knotted rope, cutting our flesh open with knives, or piercing our skin with nails. Or, he said, we could each devise our own punishment, each knowing best what would pain us most.

  He said hurt always lay close at hand. It was never too late to purge our sins through anguish.

  He told us that the plague had arrived in the southwest, then travelled along the coast, and had reached the great towns, and along the broad roads, down the main rivers, in all directions. And it was only because we were hidden away, in the wild heart of our island, that the pox had not touched us yet. But that it held us captive, encircled, and was creeping closer upon us.

  And nothing in Heaven or Earth was without reason or cause, and that this terrible plague showed one thing.

  That God was sorely angered with Man. As we had witnessed before in the scriptures, with the flood, and plagues upon Egypt, and the destruction of Sodom.

  There had been multiple warnings, signs from the heavens.

  A column of fire had appeared above Avignon. It was the Comet Negra, and earthquakes and tempests followed in its wake.

  The earth broke up and bled. Blood gushed from graves and stained the rivers red.

  Jupiter was in conjunction with Saturn.

  A stinking smoke blew over from the island of Sicily.

  In the Low Countries it had rained scorpions, frogs and lizards.

  Red snow fell in Hungary. It was frozen blood.

  In Normandy it rained hail-stones large as human heads.

  In Rouen a letter had dropped out of the sky. It had been delivered by an angel, having been written in Heaven, on vellum in red ink, in the hand of Jesus Christ Himself, saying that man must always observe the Sabbath, and scourge himself to repent of his sins.

  Abbot Benedict reminded us that we were all sinners and should all show our penitence to the Lord. We should now go foodless on Fridays and shoeless on Saturdays.

  And Brother Gregory – who was known to us all for his determined mouth and questioning spirit – rose to ask, ‘Is this not the end of the world, as is foretold in the Book of Revelations?’

  And the Abbot said, ‘No,’ he did not believe it was the Apocalypse. Not the one foretold by John the Divine. For four horsemen were not come yet. Only one like the first, known as Death. Not Famine, War and Conquest. Not yet, anyway. And when the World’s End came, everyone would surely know it.

  Yet, the Abbot said, it was a terrible plague of awful ferocity.

  We considered this in further silence.

  Then Brother Joshua rose, and asked, ‘Will we still eat fish on Fridays?’

  And the Abbot said, ‘No.’ For now we would be fasting on Fridays. And we should turn our minds away from fish, and food, and pay heed instead to our souls.

  Then Brother Gregory rose one more time, and asked, ‘Is this affliction not the fault of the Jews, for crucifying Christ?’

  And Abbot Benedict answered, ‘No.’ He believed not.

  For he had heard that in Basel, the people had gathered together all their Jews onto an island in the River Rhine, and had then thrown them all upon a bonfire. And yet this sacrifice seemed to leave the Lord unmoved. For the plague raged on, unabated.

  And in Barcelona and Strasbourg they had burned their Jews, too. But it had done nothing to appease the Lord, or halt the disease.

  So Pope Clement had made a decree forbidding the further burning of Jews, declaring that it was not God’s will, nor the Papal wish, nor any sensible cure for the pox. Then, aware that there would be no benefit from his own death either, the Holy Father locked himself away from any and all visitors, waiting for the plague to abate.

 
It was said that the Scots told a different story, supposing the plague was God’s just punishment upon the English, for being English. Fulco said they had gathered an army in Selkirk Forest, to aid God in his work, by scourging the English further. But, by invading, they caught the plague themselves, then carried it home, to spread far and wide throughout their own land.

  So the signs were clear. God was not angry with particular peoples, but with all peoples. For the plague struck all races it came upon, and all religions, and all trades, and all ranks, and all ages, and every sex, without prejudice or preference or pause – Turks, Sardinians, Gascons, Sicilians, Lombards, Normans, men and women, princes and serfs, young and old, clergy, doctors, lawyers, farriers, friars, furriers, farmers, foresters, fishermen, freemen, brewers, peasants. So none seemed immune or safe from its touch.

  And Abbot Benedict said that we could not hide from this plague for it would find us anyway, but we must meet it face on, and attend to those sickened from its touch, for that was our mission, since that was the example that our founder Saint Odo had set us. But we must be diligent and take precautions, keeping the healthy apart from the sickened, lest the infection spread, by sight, vapour, touch, however the infection passed from one soul to another.

  So, when the time came, when the pox reached us, some brothers would tend the sick in the infirmary, and keep themselves, and those ill, apart from all others. And the brothers who were to care for the sick should prepare by educating themselves on the treatments they might offer, and collect all remedies, herbs and potions they might need. And these brothers should be –

  i. Brother Fulco, as apothecary and doctor, to tend the ill.

  ii. Brother James, as grave-digger, to tend the dead.

  iii. Brother Diggory, as their helpmeet who, being neither one thing nor the other, could readily be spared.

  Then I saw several brothers twist their heads to glance my way, and in their quick peeks and the sorry flicker of their eyes, and some fleeting smiles, I saw a strange dance of feelings – of kindness, of concern, of sadness, mixed with a relief that they had not been chosen themselves.