Bridle the Wind by Joan Aiken Read Free Book Online Page A

so profound a slumber that the baby’s funeral was conducted and its pitiful little body buried in the fathers’ graveyard before he came to himself
    Can there be many monastic communities like this? I asked myself in wonder and fear, joining my voice in the requiem at the baby’s funeral service, and then, with a lighted candle in my hand, slowly following in procession to the graveyard. This lay on a grassy seaward slope of the island, enclosed by the Abbey wall, with a distant view of blue water and rolling whitecapped waves. There the unlucky little creature was buried, in holy company, with the small tombstones of dead-and-gone fathers all around him.
    â€˜He is certain to go straight to heaven,’ I heard Father Pierre assuring the mother. ‘He will be there to welcome you.’ But she only wept the more.
    Next moment, to my great surprise, Father Pierre approached me, giving me a friendly smile.
    â€˜My boy: you will not remember how many weeks you lay under my care, halfway between death and dream. Father Antoine tells me that you still have no recollection of that time.’
    â€˜No, my father; I do not; but – but I am very very much obliged and grateful to you for all your kindness and care; I should have come to thank you before –’ I stammered, thinking he must have thought me most uncivil not to have done so.
    He shook his head; he was a sandy-haired, pink-faced man who looked like a simple farmer, until you noticed the shrewdness of his small twinkling gray eyes.
    â€˜Caring for the sick is my task, and you were my patient; you still are, for that matter, in the eyes of God, until you have recovered your fullmemory. But now it is my turn to ask a favour of you.’
    â€˜Anything that I can do for you, father, of course,’ I began, somewhat startled.
    â€˜This poor sister of ours’ – Father Pierre indicated the bereaved mother, who was being led back to the visitors’ dormitory by the guest brother, Father Ambroise – ‘she should leave this place, I believe, as soon as it is possible for her to do so. It – it would not be at all advisable for her to be here, still, when Father Vespasian next wakes. He’ – Father Pierre gave me a flicker of a glance, then looked away again – ‘he becomes distressed when he has failed to cure somebody’s affliction.’
    â€˜Yes, I understand. Why, then, can she not leave?’
    â€˜She is tired and sick. She has not the strength to set out on her journey today. But Father Antoine could take her as far as the inn at the village of Zugarra, over the hill, where she could stay a day or two – only, she has no money. And I cannot draw from the Abbey funds without Father Vespasian’s permission. But – along with your clothes, my boy, which I have in safekeeping there is a money belt –’
    â€˜Of course,’ I said, remembering the eleven English gold guineas and the three silver crowns that I had carried with me for my journey. ‘Take one of the guineas; she may have it with my goodwill, poor thing.’
    â€˜Tut, tut! A crown will be sufficient,’ said Father Pierre. ‘But I will not handle your belongings inyour absence; come, and you yourself shall give me the money.’
    He led me to the infirmary, which lay off the main cloister near the kitchen, at right angles to the chapel.
    â€˜This was once the visitors’ parlour,’ he told me. ‘But when our numbers dwindled, and the old infirmary became too large for our needs, this building was thought more convenient.’
    There was a surgery downstairs, with wooden closets for blankets and bedding, shelves of medicines, pots of unguents, and bundles of herbs. Upstairs were the sickrooms where ailing members of the Community could be nursed.
    Father Pierre opened the closet where my clothes hung, carefully put up in a linen bag with sage and comfrey leaves to keep moths at