Sigefrith turns his idleness to profit

Day was dawning over the Abbey, and once again Sigefrith was up before the monks. He wasn’t smug about it, because unlike the monks he wasn’t obliged to get up and pray twice during the night. It amused him nevertheless.

“Sleepyheads!” he said softly, testing his voice on the the still air.

It had rained during the night, and the waterlogged wooden stairs muffled the thudding of his feet as he descended. The air was rich with the smells of mud and wet thatch, and delicately spiced with the balm of dripping evergreens. It did make a man feel alive.

Dodging puddles, Sigefrith stepped away from the tall guest house to get a better view of the sky. Rain clouds still hung dim and red in the east, but they broke up into tatters overhead, and the west was dotted with stars. As he walked, he even caught a glimpse of the moon between two buildings, low and full and shining.

When he stayed at the Abbey, Sigefrith usually broke his fast with the Abbot after the monks finished their dawn prayers. Judging by the color of the sky, he had perhaps an hour to kill, and the confounding thing about staying at the Abbey was that there was nothing for him to do there.

Last night he’d already brought the meager accounts of his meager kingdom up to date: a depressingly brief task, compared to the bookkeeping of his domain at Hwaelnaess by the sea.

In all but dignity of title, Lord Hwala had been a greater man than King Sigefrith now was. He probably wouldn’t even need a full-​time steward until next spring.

Sigefrith stopped walking and deliberately stamped in a puddle. The joke was on him this morning if he’d risen before the monks. This sort of reflection was what idleness brought him to, every time.

The gate to the old burial ground happened to be within reach, so he grabbed one of the bars and yanked, expecting a satisfying shriek of rust or the clang of an iron cross-​bar. Instead, the gate swung open cleanly, without a sound.

After a moment of bland surprise—for the spot had appeared weedy and neglected from the second story of the guest house—he recovered some of his ill-​humor and muttered, “By God’s green teeth, Sigefrith, if you’re going to mope, then mope in a God damned overgrown cemetery like a God damned king, or be damned.”

And with that outpouring of blasphemy he was satisfied indeed, and he entered into the burial ground with a light heart and damp feet.

It was not much of a cemetery, he saw once inside. So far as graves went, he only spotted the same two stone crosses that were visible from the second story window.

It was not especially overgrown, either. A crowd of invasive young firs grew here and there without rhyme or reason; like unwanted puppies, they ought to have been cleared away while still saplings. But beneath the canopies of nobler trees, the ground was mostly clear. What growth there was appeared patchy, as if some scatterbrained person had recently done some weeding at random, never kneeling in one spot for long.

It wouldn’t take much to bring some order to the place, Sigefrith decided. Chop down the firs, clear away a few of the useless birches to give the oaks and beeches room to grow, and bring in goats to devour the remaining weeds. It could be quite congenial. One could even sow a crop of spinach.

“After fencing off a portion for ye blessed,” Sigefrith added generously, turning to speak towards the graves off in the corner.

Having nothing better to do, he tramped over wet moss and past dripping bushes to inspect the pale stone crosses more closely.

The pink glow of dawn was still too faint on their faces to allow their graven patterns to be deciphered, but flecks of quartz on their sides refracted the moonlight, casting a shimmering halo in the mist.

Sigefrith remembered the Welsh saint over whose bones this abbey had been erected, and he wondered which of the graves was his. He decided he would ask the Abbot at breakfast. It would give him something to discuss with the tedious man.

Sigefrith was yet scratching his hair and pondering his breakfast in the presence of a saint when he heard a clink in the other corner of the enclosure. It was not much of a sound: scarcely audible over the pattering raindrops that continued to drip from the trees. But Sigefrith, bored out of his skull, gave his scalp a last scratch and turned.

Before his eyes a small door opened in the wall. He’d spotted it before—scarcely shoulder-​height and half-​hidden in a clump of ferns—but he hadn’t paid it much attention. It looked unused, and in any case he was well aware it opened onto the Abbey’s perfectly unmysterious outer court and outbuildings.

He watched, grateful for the company and curious to see what sort of monk rose as early as he. But curiosity quickly gave way to wonder. The head that ducked through the low door trailed such a length of hair that it brushed the dewy ferns. The foot that followed to sweep the fronds aside peeked past the hem of a skirt.

The mysterious visitor stepped inside, set a wooden bucket down on the turf, and turned to close and lock the door. She had to stoop to do it, bending forward gracefully at the waist and arching her back just so. Her hair slipped over her shoulders to hide her face again, and her heavy skirt—extravagantly voluminous if Sigefrith was any judge of women’s tailoring—flared out in dampened folds around her ankles. But it clung most delightfully to her hips and to a particularly handsome behind.

And by God, Sigefrith was a judge of women’s behinds.

He watched her tuck her key away and turn. The cut of her skirt magnified her every movement into swoops and swooshes that shook sparkling showers of raindrops from the ferns. She stooped to grab the handle of her bucket, and she was just popping up again when she saw Sigefrith standing by the wall.

The handle slipped from her fingers, and she reared back with a soft cry of “Oh!”

“Good morning!” Sigefrith called, trying to limit the range of his booming voice to the walls of the enclosure. The last thing he wanted just then was company.

He stepped forward without lowering his eyes from hers, plowing his way through the wet, snagging stems of weeds.

“Don’t be alarmed! I’m a guest here.”

Holy mother of a goat-​fondling god, her face was as beautiful as her rear end. Who was this creature? There were no nuns at the Abbey, and anyway, no Bride of Christ would gad about in such a glorious waste of fabric with her hair uncovered and tumbling down in damp curls around her face.

Sigefrith kept walking, and the girl sidled away from his approach. Her swinging skirts flapped against the bucket, but she left it behind.

“I’m sorry,” Sigefrith said softly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just…”

Looking at graves? That wouldn’t do.

“…admiring the moon,” he concluded, struck by a bolt of romantic inspiration. Women loved the moon.

The girl moved in short dashes, a few steps at a time, like a doe torn between competing instincts to stay still as a statue and to run for her life.

“Don’t go just yet,” he said. “My name is Sigefrith. I’m pleased to meet another early-​riser. We’re a rare and lonely breed, you and I.”

Sigefrith rounded a tree in his pursuit of her, but he scrupulously followed in her path, honoring the distance she put between them instead of dashing around the trunk and cutting her off.

“Like white deer,” he said, babbling whatever her moonlit skin and doelike beauty brought to mind. “How often do two of them even meet?”

The girl seemed to hesitate. She began to lower the hand she had pressed to her panting breast like a shield over her heart.

Sigefrith thought he was making headway and took an overambitious step. Her skirt swung out around her ankles as she turned and dashed a few steps towards the gate.

But she stopped again and turned back a last time. Except for her swishing skirt she went still as a deer at the edge of a field. Was she trying to make up her mind? Or was she only making sure he wasn’t right behind her, preparing to clap a hand over her mouth and drag her down into the weeds?

Sigefrith folded his hands and tried to look as humble as he knew how. “Please stay,” he said.

The girl hefted her damp skirt in both hands and tore off towards the gate.

Sigefrith called, “Wait! You forgot your bucket!”

She didn’t stop, and Sigefrith hesitated, panicked and torn. If he went back for her bucket, he would have an excuse to chase after her. But if he let her out of his sight he might not even know where she’d gone.

Curiosity won, and he raced after her as far as the gate. He pulled up in time to see her splashing heedlessly up the path he’d just ambled down, though instead of turning left towards the steps of the guest house, she ran behind the corner of the church, towards the Abbot’s private residence.

Now that was odd. There was no way out of there. Was she so terrified as to run helter-​skelter to the farthest corner of the court and try to hide herself in the dripping weeds?

Then, through the still air of dawn, Sigefrith heard the thunk of a door banging shut. The particular thunk of the Abbot’s door.

So that’s how it was.

God forgive him for thinking it of a priest, but the man was worldly enough in every other way. And presuming that she was some sort of maid required a talent for self-​deception that Sigefrith did not possess. Bucket notwithstanding, he did not know any sort of maid who slogged about in the rain in such a costly dress. Not even on Sundays.

Sigefrith left the gate swinging open and trudged back into the enclosure. He went aimlessly at first, distracted by the damnable unfairness of priests taking beautiful maidens as mistresses, when ordinary men hadn’t gotten laid in weeks. Then he saw the bucket.

Just what in the name of heaven was the girl doing with a bucket? Out in the wet before dawn? On a Sunday?

Sigefrith tramped up to it to peer over the rim. Empty. She hadn’t used it to carry water, either, for the wood was dry and dusty, flecked with bits of chaff; and when he ran his finger around the bottom he found a few grains of corn.

He picked up a pinch of them and popped them in his mouth. Oats. Idly grinding them between his teeth, he wondered what she’d been up to. Feeding chickens? Had the Abbot given her a pet horse?

Sigefrith brushed off his hands and was just straightening up when he noticed something peculiar. Something he hadn’t caught on his first inspection of the walled-​off yard and its caretaker’s haphazard attempts at weeding.

Every last weed left alive was covered with flowers.

Slightly less than an hour later, Sigefrith was in the Abbot’s private chamber, with a warm basket of sweet buns in his hands and a jovial smile upon his face.

“Good morning, Lord Father! I was up early, so I strolled down to the village to see what the baker had to say for himself.”

He whipped the towel off the basket and took a bow.

The Abbot sighed, “Sigefrith…”

Sigefrith bowed again, for real this time, and the Abbot wearily held out his ring to be kissed.

“I just returned from prayers,” he complained. “I haven’t even had a chance to sit down yet.”

“Then sit down, sit down, by all means,” Sigefrith said. “We can nibble on pastries while we wait for Brother Timothy to bring up breakfast.” Poking his finger into the basket, he said, “There are some cream-​filled ones in here, and some jam-​filled. Not sure which is which. We shall have to taste them to find out!”

The Abbot perked up a bit in inspecting the basket. “Those are the cream-​filled,” he pointed out. “I know the baker.”

“Excellent! I am not a man who likes to be surprised when he’s biting into something. Have a seat, Lord Father. I shall pour.”

Sigefrith picked up the pitcher. The Abbot settled in against the high back of his chair, arranged his embroidered robe over his lap, and selected a pastry. Cream-​filled, Sigefrith noted for future breakfasts.

“Mmm, still warm,” the Abbot said before biting in.

“I walk fast,” Sigefrith said, chuckling. As he poured, he observed, “Another wet night, but the day’s dawning fair.”

The Abbot, busy chewing his mouthful and examining the other pastries, only responded, “Mmm-​hmm.”

“Had a stroll about the old burial ground this morning before I went down,” Sigefrith continued. He handed the Abbot a cup. “Which one of the graves is the saint’s?”

The Abbot swallowed stickily and took a sip of his cider. “The left one,” he said, waving vaguely with the pastry he dangled between his fingers. “The other one is the first Abbot.”

He took another enormous bite, though he still failed to reach the cream.

Sigefrith said, “Ah! Seems fair. Now, that was the first thing I wanted to ask you. What was the other thing? Oh, yes.”

Sigefrith’s ironic tone was lost on the Abbot. The man appeared too consumed in choosing his next pastry before he’d finished the first.

“I saw the most exquisite girl in the cemetery this morning,” Sigefrith said. “Thought she might have been a servant, since she was carrying a bucket, but her dress seemed far too fine for a maid. Not that I am any judge of women’s tailoring.”

Sigefrith watched as the Abbot’s second bite turned to clay in his mouth. Slowly the priest lifted his eyes from the basket of buns.

“I thought you might know who she was,” Sigefrith said. “Since she went into your house.”

The Abbot resumed chewing, but this time he kept a wary eye on Sigefrith. He swallowed his mouthful of pastry in a lump and washed it down with cider.

“I expect,” he muttered, “you have seen my niece.”

“Your niece,” Sigefrith echoed dryly.

The Abbot put down his pastry and wiped his fingers on the towel. Then he sat back and looked up at Sigefrith. A bulldoggish expression settled over his features—nothing weaselly or shame-​faced about him, in spite of his discomposure a minute before.

“You thought she was my mistress,” he accused.

Sigefrith was struck dumb, in flat-​out mental free-​fall. On the rare occasions when he erred in his assessment of a man, he didn’t feel like an archer missing his mark so much as he felt like the arrow.

Finally, red-​faced, he admitted, “I did say I thought her too finely dressed for a maid.”

The Abbot snorted. He managed to look both offended and smug.

Shaken, Sigefrith pulled up a chair and crumpled into it. “Forgive me, Father. Somehow one forgets that priests have families too.”

“We do not customarily sire them, but we are sired just like any other man. Maud is my sister’s only child. She’s all the family I have left. As I am hers.”

Sigefrith repeated softly, “Maud…”

The Abbot grunted and picked up his sweet bun. “If you saw her face, you understand why I don’t introduce her to visitors. But her mother was lovelier than she at that age. And my mother was the most beautiful woman ever born. The animals would gather round her merely to look at her.”

He nibbled a bite of pastry and gazed off at the wall over Sigefrith’s head as he chewed.

“Has she taken vows?” Sigefrith asked.

The Abbot swallowed and said, “Not yet. She’ll have to go to Leol or one of the other houses when she does. But so far I’m afraid neither of us has known how to part from the other.”

“Hmm. Then it wasn’t a vow of silence that kept her from speaking to me.”

“Ha! I’m glad to hear she didn’t. She knows better than to speak to strange men.”

The Abbot smiled with such an air of satisfaction that only a bite of pastry could have stood between him and beatitude. And, with a flourish of his bun aimed directly at Sigefrith, he took the fateful bite that finally brought him to the filling of cream.

“Mmm!” he sighed, relaxing against the cushioned back of his chair.

Sigefrith reached across the table and picked a bun that wasn’t filled with anything. As he tore off a hunk of it, he observed, “A man wouldn’t be a stranger if he was introduced to her by her uncle.”

The Abbot tried to glare a warning at him, but the effect was quite spoiled by his dreamy-​eyed look of pleasure. And a man could hardly argue while he chewed.