Aelfden faces the truth

Abbot Aelfden heard the bang of the chapel door slamming shut, followed by the small, startled cry of someone unfamiliar with the trickery of its crooked hinges.

He hugged the folded alb against his chest and waited for a moment. He heard nothing, so at last he said loudly, though without shouting, “I’m in the vestry if I’m needed.”

Still nothing. He slid the alb onto the shelf and then reached down for the chasuble. He brushed the back of his hand over the gleaming green silk, more out of affection than to dust it off.

At last he heard a voice. “Father?”

He looked up and saw a young man garbed in the plain, black robes of a fellow Benedictine, but it was not one of his own monks. He supposed it was another come to join them.

“Good day, Brother. Did they send you here at the abbey?”

“Father,” he corrected.

“Brothers in Christ,” Aelfden shrugged.

“And I have not been to the abbey. I am just arrived at the castle.” He had a good English accent, but from the south, like the Duke’s. Then it turned peevish. “That door is a danger, Brother.”

Aelfden chuckled and reached into the chest to make room for the chasuble. “Father,” he corrected. “That door is a legend. But it can be closed quietly by its friends, and it warns me of the arrival of strangers.”

“Are you the priest here?” the stranger asked suspiciously.

“I am.”

“I thought the Abbot still was.”

“I am he also. Aelfden is my name. And yours?”

The young priest’s face contorted into a look of dismay. “Don’t you have a – a deacon, or server, or anyone to do that?” He peered into the chest, with its piles of pale linen and colored silk.

Aelfden smiled. “It is a young kingdom and populated with a good many godless refugees from the wars. I am only now finding enough young men to help me celebrate Mass and care for the church, and we’ve had to train those up ourselves. But I don’t mind this task.”

He picked up the green chasuble and laid it upon the black.

“Did you wear that today?” the young priest gasped.

“I did.”

“But – today is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross!”

“Holyrood Day, they call it here.”

“But red vestments must be worn!”

Aelfden sighed. “Father Alban wore them today at the abbey chapel, where the Queen attended.”

“You have no others?”

“It is a young kingdom, as I said, and I find many more urgent uses for our tithes. There are more widows and orphans in this valley than in many kingdoms twice the size.”

“That is unacceptable. I should almost say disgraceful. Shall we clothe the beggars and let the priests go in rags?”

Aelfden closed and locked the chest and turned to the young priest at last. He did not wish to be prideful, but something was beginning to rankle in him.

“Yes,” he said. “I think it more Christian than the contrary. Nor would I call these vestments ‘rags’.”

“You will admit that it is not out of vanity that the Church demands we wear red for the feasts of martyrs and of the Holy Cross, but out of recognition for blood shed in her name.”

“I admit nothing. I follow her laws to the extent of my abilities, but as my abilities include neither silk-​​weaving nor embroidery, Saint Margaret’s chapel has, of yet, no red vestments.”

Aelfden clenched his fists, driving his long nails into his palms, trying to punish himself, if not calm himself. He was allowing himself to be riled into sarcasm, to his shame.

“That shall shortly change,” the young priest smiled.

“What is your name?” Aelfden asked.

“I am Father Matthew, of Winchester and late of Rome, and this will be my parish now.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I have been sent to replace Father Brude. You may return to your abbey now, Lord Father.”

Aelfden was stunned. Of course he was never meant to stay here, but he had always supposed he would return to his abbey only when Brude returned to Saint Margaret’s. Somehow he had continued believing it even after having learned of Brude’s death. He was facing the truth for the first time, and he was frightened to think of what his face must reveal.

The truth’s own face was young, as he had long ceased being, and comely, as he had never been. The truth’s own eyes were gray, as Brude’s had been, but there was far more compassion in the eyes of Flann’s tiny baby than in the truth’s critical stare.

Aelfden did very much want to return to his abbey. If this was truth, he preferred not to face it. Now he knew truly he had lost the closest friend he had ever had. Brude would never return.

“I see,” he said finally. “Well, there are a good many things we ought to look over together before I turn matters over to you.”

“Of course.”

“And you must have letters… orders…”

“Of course.”

“I see. Shall we go to my office? Your office, I mean.”

“At once. And I shall need to speak with the Duke as well. We shall have red vestments in time for All Saints, if the Duchess has to surrender a dress to do it.”

Father Matthew turned and laid his hand on the door, but he paused, as if it had reminded him of something.

“But the first thing we shall do is fix that chapel door.”