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smackenzieThey walk around the building and into a large cloister with a well in the center. There are people walking around the covered colonnade. Brother Peire tries to ignore them, but he can hear their murmuring as he and Rainaut pass.
"They're very curious about you," Rainaut explains under his breath. "We haven't had a friar come to us voluntarily, and I think everyone knows you don't really want to be here."
It would be rude and ungrateful for Brother Peire to agree - he's about to accept fairly personal hospitality from Rainaut, more so than if he was about to be shown a guest room, and these people have fed him and are no doubt expecting to find him something to do tomorrow, and it isn't really their fault that he's not here by choice and given any other option, he would take it - but he nods anyway. Less rude, perhaps, if he doesn't say anything.
"It's ok," Rainaut says reassuringly. "One of our mandates is to take people in who don't have anywhere else to go, or anyone else to take care of them. We step in when your church fails."
"My church didn't fail me," Brother Peire says.
Rainaut stops with his hand on a door latch, and in the light from a nearby wall torch Brother Peire can see possible responses chase each other across his face. Whatever he's thinking, he's making no effort to hide that he feels some internal conflict.
"This is my cell," is what he finally says, lifting the latch and opening the door. He takes the nearby torch off the cloister wall and slots it into a bracket on the wall of the cell, so they can both see. The window is not very big and the shutter has been closed, so it would otherwise be very dark inside.
There's a bed against the wall with two folded blankets on top of the mattress and a pillow with an unevenly dyed reddish case on top of that. There's also a stool, some hooks on the walls, a small shelf, and a small iron brazier into which someone has apparently already nested some coals.
"Cozy," Rainaut says, smiling. Brother Peire forces himself to smile back. Whatever that woman in the kitchen put in the beer, he's starting to feel it. He wants to lie down and go to sleep.
Rainaut hands him the pillow and puts one blanket on the stool so he can shake out the other one over the bed. He takes the pillow back, fluffs it, and puts it on the bed as well before gesturing grandly at the whole thing.
"For you," he says. "I promise to wake you in time for the midnight service."
Brother Peire toes off his sandals, pulls the blanket back, and gingerly lies down. "What are you going to do now? Where will you sleep?"
"I'm going to reacquaint myself with my home and my brothers and sisters. I'll probably sleep in a guest room, or in the dormitory. Don't worry, I'll find a bed. Would it offend you terribly if I said it might be with someone else?" He grins.
"Would it matter if it did?"
Rainaut shrugs. "I only said it to tease you, I'm sorry."
"Are you?"
"Going to sleep with someone else? I don't think so. I'm still in some pain from all the inquisitor put me through, and I think I need to sleep alone until I'm back to my old self." He takes the torch out of the bracket and turns to go.
"Thank you." Brother Peire doesn't want to be here - not in this cell, not in this bed, not anywhere in this old monastery, but that doesn't mean he's not grateful, and it doesn't mean he can't appreciate what Rainaut is trying to do for him.
"You came to me when I didn't even realize I needed someone, and the prospect of getting to talk to you and argue with you and even tease you just one more day helped bolster me against the inquisitor's techniques. We became friends, Peire, and I would help you however you needed, mandate or no. It's nothing."
"No, it's, it's, it means a great deal." Brother Peire yawns and closes his eyes. "It's the only thing I understand, that we're friends."
"I'll tell you everything you need to know tomorrow." And then to Brother Peire's extremely tired surprise, Rainaut bends over and kisses him on the forehead, as a mother would a sleeping child. "Good night, my poor friar. Sleep well."
Brother Peire doesn't even hear him shut the door. He dreams that he's back in Montagui, working in the Gray Friars' kitchen garden, but all the onions are coming out of the ground either shriveled dry or black and rotting. Brother Aimeric suggests that he must have done something to displease the Holy Father and the Mother Church, and this is God's way of telling him to repent. His sin is going to poison the entire chapter, Brother Aimeric says.
And despite the sleep-inducing herbs in the beer that Rainaut gave him, Brother Peire is so distraught at the idea that he could poison the Montagui chapter of the Gray Friars that he wakes up.
His brain is slow and fuzzy with sleep, and at first he doesn't recognize where he is. He never had his own cell in the friary. No one did, aside from the abbot, and that was only on account of his station and his age. The friars all slept in the dormitory, in long rooms with cubbies for their beds and square shutterless windows high up the walls. But here he is in a small cell with an iron brazier no doubt cooling off because the coals inside have gone to ash, and he is alone.
He climbs out of bed, opens the door, and goes outside. The air is damp and chill and the stars are bright and sharp over the cloister. A cloud blows across the crescent moon. There are still a few torches burning around the colonnade, but he doesn't see anyone and when he steps out onto the grass of the courtyard and tries to see over the cloister wall, the only other manmade light comes from the church.
It wasn't a dream, he realizes. He really could have poisoned his brother friars, all of them, out of friendship with a heretic. He never at any point ever considered renouncing his vows and his church and his order - Rainaut's faith, the little Brother Peire could understand, held no attraction to him. It was still blasphemy. But it was Rainaut's dogma to follow as he liked, and Brother Peire could at least understand that it gave the man peace. And who was he to deny someone peace? Especially someone he liked, for whom he had a very nascent respect.
And the abbot had all but said that Brother Peire was an apostate. And he isn't. He never will be. He still believes firmly in the rule of the Mother Church, and the tenets of the Order of St Austor, and he doesn't know how he can keep them here among all these heretics.
He kneels on the grass, completely a loss. He doesn't know what to do, or how he's going to be able to stay here.
Please forgive me, my Lord, he thinks. I never meant anyone harm. You are still my Lord, my God, my savior in all things, and I only wished to live my life according to Your will. That is all I wish now. Please show me what to do.
His head hurts. His eyes sting. He can't sit out here in the cloister courtyard and pray. He needs solitude. He needs a sanctified place.
He needs to go back to bed, as he discovers when he stands up and the world sways alarmingly around him. So he goes back inside Rainaut's cell, closes the door behind him, and climbs back in bed.
Please, he thinks, please help me.
He's thankfully, if not very deeply, asleep when Rainaut comes to get him for the midnight service, and he tries and fails to pay attention to Rainaut's explanation as to why the heretics only pray formally four times a day, and how their midnight service might differ from the evening services Brother Peire is more familiar with.
"Did you sleep?" Rainaut asks quietly, as they file into the church and take their seats. Brother Peire nods. "Good sleep?" Brother Peire shakes his head. "I'm sorry. Should I stay with you? Would that help? Would you like to take a bed in the dormitory for the rest of the night?"
A young man sitting in front of them turns and tells him to hush. The woman who led the dusk service takes her place in front of the altar and begins, and Brother Peire tries to concentrate on her words and the congregation's responses, and the singing and the chanting and the knowledge that these people still hung an eternal lamp inside the door of their church, and there has to be some commonality between his beliefs and theirs. He wishes he knew what it was. He wishes he could concentrate.
He stands and sits with the rest of the congregation, trying to concentrate on Rainaut's voice when he can't concentrate on anything else. Whatever was in that beer must have been very strong.
"Peace be upon you and your rest," the woman in front of the altar finally says, holding out her hands to the congregation as if to bless them.
"Peace be upon you and your rest as well," the congregation responds, and people start standing and wishing their neighbors a peaceful rest and heading outside to no doubt go back to bed.
"What do you want?" Rainaut asks Brother Peire, after they've been blessed by several other heretics.
"I want to go home," Brother Peire says without thinking. Rainaut smiles ruefully.
"Besides that. Do you want to go back to my cell to sleep, or should I take you to the dormitory? Or the guest rooms?"
"I don't think I can sleep in a room full of, of - "
"Heretics." Now Rainaut is grinning. "It's ok. We'll go back to my cell. I can sleep on the floor if you don't want to be alone."
He leads Brother Peire back to the cloister and his cell, and Brother Peire climbs into bed and Rainaut wraps himself in the other blanket and lies down on the floor.
"Peace upon your sleep, my brother," Rainaut says.
"Please don't call me that," Brother Peire says. He feels sharp and distant like the stars, and cold and fragile like a thin sheet of ice over the water in a bucket.
"I'm sorry. Old habit. But the sentiment remains."
"Then, then peace upon your sleep too."
Brother Peire doesn't dream this time, and he doesn't wake until Rainaut is shaking his shoulder and telling him to get up, it's time for the dawn service and then the beginning of their day.
words: 1841
total words: 19,480
"They're very curious about you," Rainaut explains under his breath. "We haven't had a friar come to us voluntarily, and I think everyone knows you don't really want to be here."
It would be rude and ungrateful for Brother Peire to agree - he's about to accept fairly personal hospitality from Rainaut, more so than if he was about to be shown a guest room, and these people have fed him and are no doubt expecting to find him something to do tomorrow, and it isn't really their fault that he's not here by choice and given any other option, he would take it - but he nods anyway. Less rude, perhaps, if he doesn't say anything.
"It's ok," Rainaut says reassuringly. "One of our mandates is to take people in who don't have anywhere else to go, or anyone else to take care of them. We step in when your church fails."
"My church didn't fail me," Brother Peire says.
Rainaut stops with his hand on a door latch, and in the light from a nearby wall torch Brother Peire can see possible responses chase each other across his face. Whatever he's thinking, he's making no effort to hide that he feels some internal conflict.
"This is my cell," is what he finally says, lifting the latch and opening the door. He takes the nearby torch off the cloister wall and slots it into a bracket on the wall of the cell, so they can both see. The window is not very big and the shutter has been closed, so it would otherwise be very dark inside.
There's a bed against the wall with two folded blankets on top of the mattress and a pillow with an unevenly dyed reddish case on top of that. There's also a stool, some hooks on the walls, a small shelf, and a small iron brazier into which someone has apparently already nested some coals.
"Cozy," Rainaut says, smiling. Brother Peire forces himself to smile back. Whatever that woman in the kitchen put in the beer, he's starting to feel it. He wants to lie down and go to sleep.
Rainaut hands him the pillow and puts one blanket on the stool so he can shake out the other one over the bed. He takes the pillow back, fluffs it, and puts it on the bed as well before gesturing grandly at the whole thing.
"For you," he says. "I promise to wake you in time for the midnight service."
Brother Peire toes off his sandals, pulls the blanket back, and gingerly lies down. "What are you going to do now? Where will you sleep?"
"I'm going to reacquaint myself with my home and my brothers and sisters. I'll probably sleep in a guest room, or in the dormitory. Don't worry, I'll find a bed. Would it offend you terribly if I said it might be with someone else?" He grins.
"Would it matter if it did?"
Rainaut shrugs. "I only said it to tease you, I'm sorry."
"Are you?"
"Going to sleep with someone else? I don't think so. I'm still in some pain from all the inquisitor put me through, and I think I need to sleep alone until I'm back to my old self." He takes the torch out of the bracket and turns to go.
"Thank you." Brother Peire doesn't want to be here - not in this cell, not in this bed, not anywhere in this old monastery, but that doesn't mean he's not grateful, and it doesn't mean he can't appreciate what Rainaut is trying to do for him.
"You came to me when I didn't even realize I needed someone, and the prospect of getting to talk to you and argue with you and even tease you just one more day helped bolster me against the inquisitor's techniques. We became friends, Peire, and I would help you however you needed, mandate or no. It's nothing."
"No, it's, it's, it means a great deal." Brother Peire yawns and closes his eyes. "It's the only thing I understand, that we're friends."
"I'll tell you everything you need to know tomorrow." And then to Brother Peire's extremely tired surprise, Rainaut bends over and kisses him on the forehead, as a mother would a sleeping child. "Good night, my poor friar. Sleep well."
Brother Peire doesn't even hear him shut the door. He dreams that he's back in Montagui, working in the Gray Friars' kitchen garden, but all the onions are coming out of the ground either shriveled dry or black and rotting. Brother Aimeric suggests that he must have done something to displease the Holy Father and the Mother Church, and this is God's way of telling him to repent. His sin is going to poison the entire chapter, Brother Aimeric says.
And despite the sleep-inducing herbs in the beer that Rainaut gave him, Brother Peire is so distraught at the idea that he could poison the Montagui chapter of the Gray Friars that he wakes up.
His brain is slow and fuzzy with sleep, and at first he doesn't recognize where he is. He never had his own cell in the friary. No one did, aside from the abbot, and that was only on account of his station and his age. The friars all slept in the dormitory, in long rooms with cubbies for their beds and square shutterless windows high up the walls. But here he is in a small cell with an iron brazier no doubt cooling off because the coals inside have gone to ash, and he is alone.
He climbs out of bed, opens the door, and goes outside. The air is damp and chill and the stars are bright and sharp over the cloister. A cloud blows across the crescent moon. There are still a few torches burning around the colonnade, but he doesn't see anyone and when he steps out onto the grass of the courtyard and tries to see over the cloister wall, the only other manmade light comes from the church.
It wasn't a dream, he realizes. He really could have poisoned his brother friars, all of them, out of friendship with a heretic. He never at any point ever considered renouncing his vows and his church and his order - Rainaut's faith, the little Brother Peire could understand, held no attraction to him. It was still blasphemy. But it was Rainaut's dogma to follow as he liked, and Brother Peire could at least understand that it gave the man peace. And who was he to deny someone peace? Especially someone he liked, for whom he had a very nascent respect.
And the abbot had all but said that Brother Peire was an apostate. And he isn't. He never will be. He still believes firmly in the rule of the Mother Church, and the tenets of the Order of St Austor, and he doesn't know how he can keep them here among all these heretics.
He kneels on the grass, completely a loss. He doesn't know what to do, or how he's going to be able to stay here.
Please forgive me, my Lord, he thinks. I never meant anyone harm. You are still my Lord, my God, my savior in all things, and I only wished to live my life according to Your will. That is all I wish now. Please show me what to do.
His head hurts. His eyes sting. He can't sit out here in the cloister courtyard and pray. He needs solitude. He needs a sanctified place.
He needs to go back to bed, as he discovers when he stands up and the world sways alarmingly around him. So he goes back inside Rainaut's cell, closes the door behind him, and climbs back in bed.
Please, he thinks, please help me.
He's thankfully, if not very deeply, asleep when Rainaut comes to get him for the midnight service, and he tries and fails to pay attention to Rainaut's explanation as to why the heretics only pray formally four times a day, and how their midnight service might differ from the evening services Brother Peire is more familiar with.
"Did you sleep?" Rainaut asks quietly, as they file into the church and take their seats. Brother Peire nods. "Good sleep?" Brother Peire shakes his head. "I'm sorry. Should I stay with you? Would that help? Would you like to take a bed in the dormitory for the rest of the night?"
A young man sitting in front of them turns and tells him to hush. The woman who led the dusk service takes her place in front of the altar and begins, and Brother Peire tries to concentrate on her words and the congregation's responses, and the singing and the chanting and the knowledge that these people still hung an eternal lamp inside the door of their church, and there has to be some commonality between his beliefs and theirs. He wishes he knew what it was. He wishes he could concentrate.
He stands and sits with the rest of the congregation, trying to concentrate on Rainaut's voice when he can't concentrate on anything else. Whatever was in that beer must have been very strong.
"Peace be upon you and your rest," the woman in front of the altar finally says, holding out her hands to the congregation as if to bless them.
"Peace be upon you and your rest as well," the congregation responds, and people start standing and wishing their neighbors a peaceful rest and heading outside to no doubt go back to bed.
"What do you want?" Rainaut asks Brother Peire, after they've been blessed by several other heretics.
"I want to go home," Brother Peire says without thinking. Rainaut smiles ruefully.
"Besides that. Do you want to go back to my cell to sleep, or should I take you to the dormitory? Or the guest rooms?"
"I don't think I can sleep in a room full of, of - "
"Heretics." Now Rainaut is grinning. "It's ok. We'll go back to my cell. I can sleep on the floor if you don't want to be alone."
He leads Brother Peire back to the cloister and his cell, and Brother Peire climbs into bed and Rainaut wraps himself in the other blanket and lies down on the floor.
"Peace upon your sleep, my brother," Rainaut says.
"Please don't call me that," Brother Peire says. He feels sharp and distant like the stars, and cold and fragile like a thin sheet of ice over the water in a bucket.
"I'm sorry. Old habit. But the sentiment remains."
"Then, then peace upon your sleep too."
Brother Peire doesn't dream this time, and he doesn't wake until Rainaut is shaking his shoulder and telling him to get up, it's time for the dawn service and then the beginning of their day.
words: 1841
total words: 19,480
