The Breath of Peace by Penelope Wilcock Page A

inhabitants of the abbey’s demesne.
    Even so, out in the woodyard his conscience pained him like a bit of gravel stuck to the sole of his foot. He shouldn’t have spoken to a postulant with such asperity. The young man had looked more frightened than chastened. Abbot John turned back, and followed the mittenless miscreant all the way to the novitiate.
    â€˜I’m sorry, Colin,’ he said humbly when he caught up with him. ‘I didn’t mean to speak so sharp. I had something on my mind – felt a bit burdened. But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. You must protect your hands though, in this cold, or they will be damaged – and that’s pure misery. That’s all I meant.’
    And having attended to that, he returned to his own lodging, recognizing that the extent of their predicament was exposed by the fact that he knew he would seek Brother Thomas’s advice, simply because from Tom he would hear better sense than he could expect from Father Chad.
    â€˜Tom, I don’t know what to do,’ he admitted. ‘The bishop will be here digging into every nook and cranny if all I’ve heard of him is true. It’s imperative we have everything in order. Brother Ambrose was old. I’ve had a year to prepare myself, and done nothing. I have to confess, I think I may not have the stature of spirit for what I’ve taken on in this obedience.’
    â€˜Nay, neither you nor any man!’ Tom responded stoutly. ‘That’s why we pray. There will be a solution. In this case, if the rumours I’ve heard are true, it probably lives ten miles to the south-west.’
    John stared at him, taken aback. ‘You… you think I should seek the help of William de Bulmer? I must admit, it had crossed my mind, but…’
    Tom watched his abbot wrestling with his uncertainties as to the propriety of this possibility. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘all you have to do is call on him and ask his advice. If you judge it right to let him loose here again, well you’d stand within your rights to do so; but meanwhile you can slip out quiet-like and just see if he has any helpful guidance to offer, can you not? He may have flown the coop and made his roost in the wilderness, but he’s got his head screwed on even if his wings weren’t clipped. If you see what I mean.’
    â€˜Er… yes, I think so… Well, I’ll consider it.’
    Abbot John tried without success to attend to other matters awaiting his attention, but his mind was riveted onto this central dilemma of having no cellarer. At this precise minute it posed no grave problem, but once the spring came all that would change. It would be unthinkable to have nobody holding that obedience when the Easter triduum faced them with its influx of guests and pilgrims, and impossible to manage the wave of administration around Lady Day when all the rents were due in. Happily Easter fell late this year, which bought them a little time, though it meant the new bishop’s visit would be on them before they had time to catch their breath after the pilgrims had departed. Lent did not begin until the second week of March, and they had not yet seen out January. Ideally he needed to see a new man in place by Candlemas; but it would be unfair – and unrealistic – to expect anybody, however capable, to get a handle on so complex an obedience very quickly, even if he’d had someone primed to step up to the appointment tomorrow. They needed every flying minute of the time they had to get this space filled.
    However hard he thought about it, nobody came to mind. He sat frowning, unaware of his fingers drumming the table, mentally searching every face, every personality in his community. Germanus, maybe? Thoughtful man, not greatly occupied. Francis? Or maybe he could kill two birds with one stone and ask Father Chad to take on the cellarer’s work, which would dislodge him from his