Chapter Fourteen
Brother Luke was in the Scriptorium again the next morning.
‘Did Brother Godfreyd not need you?’ Linnet asked. She didn’t want him coming in again to disturb them if they were working.
Luke looked ill at ease.
‘The Prior said I must be here. The Inspector agreed too. Did you hear him talking about that fisherman last night?’
Linnet supposed that had been in the Chapter House so no, she would not have heard that. She wondered if Cassian had told the Inspector about Tom’s sins yet.
‘He talks a lot of sense, that Inspector does. It’s not enough to be a monk and be praying, you know, it’s about letting God see you, truly see you, see into your heart and trust Him to be testing you. He talked of Maykin too, but the Prior stopped him then.’
That didn’t sound anything more than general praying, if Cassian had said something, that would be all the monks were talking about.
Luke’s voice had risen and he was almost preaching at her. Then he seemed to remember she was only a woman, not a monk, and he looked down at the desk.
‘You’ll need to make your own pens, I can’t be giving you all mine.
’ Linnet wasn’t going to be making pens for the two of them.
‘You can have these feathers though.’ She gave him half of what she’d collected recently, and showed him how to pare back the edges, give the nib a slit to draw in the ink, how the shape made the curl of the letters different.
She told him swan feathers made the best pens but they could make do here with goose feathers, or any of the larger birds.
While he worked, she went back to the prayer book. It was nearly done. She’d be paid for it when Lady Margaret came to get it and then she could pay for her cloak. Tom hadn’t asked for payment but she usually gave him a few coins as thanks if he did a favour for her.
The thought stabbed her as Tom’s death came crashing back in again.
Her cloak would be at Tom’s. She didn’t know if he had mended it or, what did it matter now?
Tom was gone. No. She needed that cloak.
She would get it now before his cottage was given over to someone.
She’d not troubled to steal it only for it to get stolen from her in turn.
Leaving Luke at his pens, she left the Priory by the front gate, and walked into the village to Tom’s house. No one was there, everyone busy with everything that needed doing. Nothing stopped needing doing just because someone had died.
The cottage was small, swept and clean. Not more than a room really.
His nets were piled up in the corner, but in order, ready to be used again.
She touched one. The rope was still damp from his last time out.
Nothing looked different from when she used to stay here as a child, except for the emptiness.
He didn’t eat here much, there was no food in the place, always going to the tavern or the Priory, she supposed. On his bed, her cloak, folded and mended. Tracing the stitches with one finger. Careful almost invisible stitches.
Holding back her tears because things needed doing, didn’t they, she picked it up and pulled it around her. She began to warm up properly for the first time in days.
She looked around the rest of the cottage, looking for signs of Tom’s despair maybe?
She didn’t find much, although he had a nice little wooden box she was tempted by.
She looked inside, it was empty. Take it?
Best not. In a place this small, it might be known as Tom’s box.
From a shelf she took a few smooth black pebbles that felt pleasing to the touch.
It looked like he’d been collecting them.
Back at the Scriptorium, Luke was reordering all her inks. She’d had them in their right place, the order she used them in with the oak gall at the front, then the colours behind. A few pots ready and some clothlets for when she started illuminating again.
‘Stop that!’ The words came out sharply before she could think.
He was startled but not sorry.
‘The Prior told me I’d be in charge in here.’
‘That as maybe, but you still need to learn and if you move my inks, I can’t teach you, can I?’ Even to Linnet that wasn’t a good reason, but she didn’t want everything touched, everything messed with.
It was enough for Luke though, and he put it all back, sullen but submitting to her wishes for now.
It was men again, taking up space wherever Linnet was. Even in this remote corner of England where she had fled to, she was still being made to feel smaller every day.
As Luke had started with the inks, she showed him her simple recipe for gall ink, not her special one that wrote so smoothly. He could have the bare information he needed, but her secret knowledge was another matter.
‘You can use small ale or wine – wine writes better if the cellarer will give you some. The longer you leave the crushed oak gall with the iron pieces and the wine, the darker the ink will be.’
He nodded like he was listening but she could tell he was only paying half a mind.
‘Cover it with a cloth to stop flies getting in,’ she showed him with a rag she kept for that purpose, ‘and then your ink will be brewing.’
His high-minded look would do him no good.
A scribe needed to be close with the kitchen and the stable and everywhere to get the materials they needed.
Sure, some came with the pedlars and others, but it was the common items that made it easy to make the ink.
A jug of wine here, an egg white or two there. He’d learn though, if he tried.
Linnet returned to the prayer book. She was on to the last page now. After the text was complete, she added a tiny linnet bird to the margin as was her custom. Luke was watching.
‘Why did you add that?’
‘Scribes often add something of themselves to their work,’ she said.
‘You should think about what you’d like as your sign.
You could have a winged bull perhaps, like the Gospel Luke.
Or a candle flame – Luke like light.’ She’d seen some manuscripts where a scribe had put their name, but she thought that was wrong, too much interfering with the text on the page.
Luke liked that idea and spent a few minutes drawing small winged oxen and flickering flames on the scrap of parchment she’d given him the day before.
She went to find the Prior to let him know the prayer book was finished. She needed a new task to keep busy. Before she could knock at his parlour, she heard a loud noise, a lot of shouting and squawking and a fluttering from the inner courtyard.
‘You shitting bird – you bit me!’ Godfreyd roared, his usual smooth demeanour cracked.
Pol was perched triumphantly on the edge of the water basin, preening and smoothing his shiny black-blue feathers. The basin was set into the wall outside the Chapter House. A short line of monks were regarding him warily. There was water everywhere.
Cassian stepped forward to shoo the bird away but took a hasty step back when Pol went for him, wings flapping, claws outstretched. Faster than Godfreyd, he escaped injury.
The Prior came out of his parlour. ‘What’s going on here?’
He saw Godfreyd nursing his hand, a small, red gash showing that Pol had indeed pecked him.
‘Well he has to get his dust off, don’t he?’ Isabelle said, defending the bird. She had turned up suddenly, as silent as a cat.
‘Child, we cannot have birds in the Lavatorium basin, it’s for monks to cleanse themselves before prayers.’ The Prior was stern, glaring at Isabelle, who glared back.
‘He allus does. It’s his basin,’ she said.
‘Explains the feathers we always find here,’ one of the monks said dryly.
‘Take him away.’ The Prior was implacable, not a trace of his usual fondness for the child in his voice.
‘He’s clean now anyways, come on, Pol.’
The bird stretched his neck to one side, and with what Linnet could only think was an evil smile if a beak could smile, squirted a stream of shit into the basin, before flying to the child and they ran, leaving fury behind them.
Godfreyd protested to the Prior, loudly declaring that the bird and the child were given too much freedom in a holy place. The Prior’s face gave nothing away as he nodded. The Inspector came out of the parlour too, looking disdainfully at the dirty water and the monks now scrubbing out the basin.
In all the uproar, Linnet picked up the feathers Pol had plucked out. They would make good pens and having given Luke a share of her store, she had few left.
‘There is no place in this Priory for an evil bird like that raven,’ the Inspector said. ‘I shall have to put it in my report if you don’t take steps to remove it. They are the birds of doom and death.’
Cassian crossed himself, head bowed as he drank in the Inspector’s words.
They’d had enough death recently but Pol wasn’t to blame. But something was at the back of Linnet’s mind, always just out of reach.
‘Deus pascit corvos,’ the Prior muttered, ‘let’s go back to the papers, shall we?’
He beckoned Linnet over. ‘Do you have the prayer book for me? Bring it to me in the parlour.’
Linnet put the prayer book on the table, a feeling of pride running through her. The Inspector picked it up, turning it over and examining the text and the illuminations carefully. He hadn’t noticed the linnet she’d added. She didn’t think he would approve of a scribe leaving their sign.
‘This is good work. You’ll be teaching the monks, yes?’
‘Yes, Brother Luke is working on inks and pens today. He needs to get his tools in order before he can start scribing in earnest. What’s my next task, Prior?’
He dug through the chest of books, looking for something small.
‘Ah yes, here it is, we need a copy of this book of the Gospels. It will have illustrations and we’ll include the lapis lazuli when that comes.’
Linnet took the book carefully, looking through it. A typical Gospel manuscript but no illumination in this one.
‘You must add the drawings and have five full pages for each Gospel, as well as their title pages. And Brother Luke can work on the text.’
Linnet would have felt more aggrieved but she was already lost in ideas for the pictures. Yes, she could get Luke to scribe the text. She could surely train him to do that well – he did have a good hand.
‘Father, is that a book we will be paid for?’ Brother Marcus, still pushing for his place as the new bursar.
‘No, this is for Bishop Foxe. Sometimes we cast out a gift to get greater riches. Now, did you want to start on a new bursar’s book?’
Finally, Marcus’s patience had paid off. As Linnet left, she could see him pushing down the bubble of his joy as he tried to seem humble and grateful.
Linnet was turning into the Scriptorium when a hand grabbed at her wrist and sharply pulled her into the side of the passage, a dark corner away from the courtyard and the guest room.