Bridle the Wind by Joan Aiken Read Free Book Online

mother pulled back the shawl that she had wrapped over her baby.
    Even before she did so, I felt a qualm of apprehension. For the baby itself had not been able to appeal to Father Vespasian; nor had it understood his words of hope and encouragement. Perhaps it had not even heard them. In fact, as its mother pulled aside the coverings, no change could be seen in the poor thing, and the face she lifted to the Abbot was both pleading and penitent, as if she apologised for its lack of collaboration in the ceremony, and begged humbly to be given a second chance.
    Father Vespasian’s face became stern and clouded. I saw his eyes flicker to and fro. With a dry mouth I recognised the pinched, indrawn look of his nostrils, the impatient compression of his lips.
    Would he fly into a rage, shout at the wretched mother, order that she or the baby should be beaten? I found that my hands were clenched in suspense.
    Father Pierre, the infirmarian, was quick to avert the threat.
    He moved forward, bowed deeply, if hurriedly, and said, ‘My lord Abbot, the woman and her child must both be weary and hungry too, if they have travelled all the way from Narbonne. Let them remain overnight in the guesthouse, and verylikely by tomorrow the little one will be in better case to benefit from your healing. Come with me, my sister,’ he said to the poor woman, who was indeed almost ready to drop from exhaustion and disappointment, swaying as she stood. ‘Come, you and your babe will be the better for some hot soup,’ and he led her rapidly away before the threatened explosion from Father Vespasian.
    Meanwhile the rest of the monks had struck up a Te Deum of thankfulness for the two wonderful acts of healing and the careworn-looking Prior Anselm led Father Vespasian away towards his lodge, talking to him quickly, earnestly, and deferentially, doubtless congratulating him on his success in two cases out of three. But I could see that the Abbot remained displeased and unsatisfied; he glanced back sharply, two or three times, in the direction of the woman and her baby, as if he were still of a mind to try further measures on them.
    What a frightening gift he has! I thought, mechanically turning to follow the others out of the cloister. How glad I am that
I
have not such a healing touch, since it seems to bring with it such cares and penalties; and I wondered very much about the woman and her baby, what would now happen to them? If I were Father Pierre, I would be much inclined to smuggle them away from the Abbey before there was a chance of another meeting with Father Vespasian, for, if he had not been able to make the poor child better today,there seemed little likelihood that matters would be any more fortunate tomorrow.
    I fear that, all through the hour of dinner which followed the healing ceremony, my mind was inclined to be absent; I swallowed down my lentil soup but paid very little heed to the chapters from the Book of Proverbs that Father Roger was reading aloud to us.
    Is Father Vespasian’s gift really derived from God? I wondered. Or could it be a trick of the Evil One, and intended to entrap him into sinful pride? In which case, how can it be that the healing takes effect on the sick people?
    Can the devil heal, as well as God? Or is it all a trick, a deception, they are not really healed? Or were they not really as sick as they thought, in the first place?
    Dearly would I have liked to put these questions to Father Antoine, but feared that he might be horrified and call me a heretic.
    Next morning Father Vespasian was not to be seen. And I learned from the novice Alaric, who whispered it in study hour, that the Abbot had paid a surprise visit to the visitors’ dortor at dawn, and found the poor baby dead and stiff in its cot. The sight of its tiny waxen corpse had incurred in him a seizure of such terrible violence that the poor mother fainted dead away in terror; and after his fit Father Vespasian himself fell into