hair.’
Thomas is half-standing and stops, confused.
‘No, Father Barnaby,’ he says. ‘I am – I cannot come back. I am no longer as I was. I feel as if I have – I have done things. I have seen things. I do not feel the same. I do not belong here. I cannot come back. I thought you knew?’
Barnaby hushes him.
‘All will be well,’ he smiles. ‘All will be well.’
Barnaby leads Thomas out of the almonry and over to the cloister where Thomas stands with the lay brothers and waits for Barnaby to vest himself and prepare to read the lessons. The brothers are all farmers with no land of their own. Rough men, unlettered, with chapped faces that are almost never inside under a protective roof or enclosed by cosseting walls, but out in the fields in all weather, and so they look on the observance of the hours as a time of rest, recuperation. He is familiar with them, or their sort, and comfortable in their presence.
But they are all looking at him now. He has removed his cap, but he has a full head of hair, and he wears his plated jack, with a knife at his belt, a heavy purse, blue woollen hose and polished brown leather riding boots turned down to the knee. The way they look at him reminds him of something, but he does not know what, and he sees their envy, and he feels a twinge of guilt, but it does not shift the sense of loss.
During the observance the words come back to him, but he knows he would not be able to say them on his own and they mean nothing to him, and afterwards, Barnaby summons him again. He walks with him along the cloister range to an iron-hooped door which he unlocks with a key as long as his forearm and while he does so, Thomas turns and looks out on to the garth, the small square of grass held bracketed by the cloister wings. He wonders if he can remember the fight Barnaby says took place, but he cannot. His gaze floats over the cloister walls, and he can hear the jackdaws clacking in their treetops and the geese chuckling in their meers, settling for the night in the world beyond, and he can remember nothing.
Barnaby swings open the door and fumbles with a lamp. When it is lit, Thomas recalls that the room is the sacristy, where they keep the altar silver, the transubstantiated hosts, and such coinage as they possess, but there is also the priory’s illuminated Bible, a book of hours made in Ghent and there, the smallest of the three, lying on top of the pile on a shelf made of stone, a bound book the size of a woman’s palm and as thick as a man’s thumb.
Barnaby picks it up and passes it to him.
‘Do you recognise it?’ he asks.
And Thomas does. It is his psalter, bound before it was ever finished. He opens it carefully. The early pages are filled with tiny, beautifully neat rows of perfectly exacted letters, each page begun with an initial lit with colours not seen in nature, or not at least by Thomas: rich reds, purples, the deepest blues, golds and even silvers. And folded within are scenes from the Bible – here is Christ being presented at the synagogue, here he is at the wedding feast in Cana – each design picked out with startling artistry. It is a marvel.
‘The time I must have spent on this,’ Thomas breathes. ‘But why is it bound? It is not finished. Look.’
Towards the back of the book he finds that in reverse of the normal practice, his former self had saturated the backgrounds to the pictures first, leaving the clothes and the faces of the foreground characters blank. On one page the pale ghost of Christ is betrayed by the pale ghost of Judas while the outline of St Peter looks on, expressionless, in a grey rocked garden bound with grapevines from which hang luscious blue fruits, so cleverly painted that you can see the powdery bloom against the gloss of their bulging flesh.
‘It was guilt, I think,’ Barnaby says. ‘The Prior regretted ceding to Giles Riven his demands – that he kill you – and when the ferryman told us about how his punt would
Thomas is half-standing and stops, confused.
‘No, Father Barnaby,’ he says. ‘I am – I cannot come back. I am no longer as I was. I feel as if I have – I have done things. I have seen things. I do not feel the same. I do not belong here. I cannot come back. I thought you knew?’
Barnaby hushes him.
‘All will be well,’ he smiles. ‘All will be well.’
Barnaby leads Thomas out of the almonry and over to the cloister where Thomas stands with the lay brothers and waits for Barnaby to vest himself and prepare to read the lessons. The brothers are all farmers with no land of their own. Rough men, unlettered, with chapped faces that are almost never inside under a protective roof or enclosed by cosseting walls, but out in the fields in all weather, and so they look on the observance of the hours as a time of rest, recuperation. He is familiar with them, or their sort, and comfortable in their presence.
But they are all looking at him now. He has removed his cap, but he has a full head of hair, and he wears his plated jack, with a knife at his belt, a heavy purse, blue woollen hose and polished brown leather riding boots turned down to the knee. The way they look at him reminds him of something, but he does not know what, and he sees their envy, and he feels a twinge of guilt, but it does not shift the sense of loss.
During the observance the words come back to him, but he knows he would not be able to say them on his own and they mean nothing to him, and afterwards, Barnaby summons him again. He walks with him along the cloister range to an iron-hooped door which he unlocks with a key as long as his forearm and while he does so, Thomas turns and looks out on to the garth, the small square of grass held bracketed by the cloister wings. He wonders if he can remember the fight Barnaby says took place, but he cannot. His gaze floats over the cloister walls, and he can hear the jackdaws clacking in their treetops and the geese chuckling in their meers, settling for the night in the world beyond, and he can remember nothing.
Barnaby swings open the door and fumbles with a lamp. When it is lit, Thomas recalls that the room is the sacristy, where they keep the altar silver, the transubstantiated hosts, and such coinage as they possess, but there is also the priory’s illuminated Bible, a book of hours made in Ghent and there, the smallest of the three, lying on top of the pile on a shelf made of stone, a bound book the size of a woman’s palm and as thick as a man’s thumb.
Barnaby picks it up and passes it to him.
‘Do you recognise it?’ he asks.
And Thomas does. It is his psalter, bound before it was ever finished. He opens it carefully. The early pages are filled with tiny, beautifully neat rows of perfectly exacted letters, each page begun with an initial lit with colours not seen in nature, or not at least by Thomas: rich reds, purples, the deepest blues, golds and even silvers. And folded within are scenes from the Bible – here is Christ being presented at the synagogue, here he is at the wedding feast in Cana – each design picked out with startling artistry. It is a marvel.
‘The time I must have spent on this,’ Thomas breathes. ‘But why is it bound? It is not finished. Look.’
Towards the back of the book he finds that in reverse of the normal practice, his former self had saturated the backgrounds to the pictures first, leaving the clothes and the faces of the foreground characters blank. On one page the pale ghost of Christ is betrayed by the pale ghost of Judas while the outline of St Peter looks on, expressionless, in a grey rocked garden bound with grapevines from which hang luscious blue fruits, so cleverly painted that you can see the powdery bloom against the gloss of their bulging flesh.
‘It was guilt, I think,’ Barnaby says. ‘The Prior regretted ceding to Giles Riven his demands – that he kill you – and when the ferryman told us about how his punt would
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