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smackenzie"You were a friar, were you not?" one of the men asks Brother Peire, and to Rainaut he adds "Show him the copy room."
The copy room is at the end of the long hall. There are only three desks, placed to catch as much light as possible.
"There should be someone here," Rainaut comments, sounding a little confused. "In any case, this is the copy room. Copyists work as long as there's sun, although in the winter they resort to candles. We have a library, as you saw, but a lot of the scrolls and manuscripts there are in bad shape – some of them were left by the monks, who probably thought they were a touch too blasphemous to take when the community disbanded. So we copy them more legibly. We also have a few books of scripture, and yes, before you ask, you'll consider it heretical scripture, and we want to copy those to help seed other communities like ours in other places." He gestures to the only desk that looks as if someone is working at it. There are pens and open pots of ink and sheets of parchment, and on a table next to the desk is an open book which is apparently the manuscript being copied. "How similar was the copy room at the friary?"
"It was next to the library," Brother Peire says. "And smaller. The desks were closer together."
"Jaufre is supposed to be here. Should we wait for him so you can talk to him, or should I continue the tour?"
"How much more is there to see?"
"There's the bath house and the chapel. I was going to save the chapel for last. I think you'll like it."
"I think I like the copy room too." Brother Peire walks over to the table to see what the copyist – Jaufre – is working on. The letters are thick and round and very close together, making the words hard to read, but he manages to decipher enough to determine that this must be a kind of physicians' manual, and the page that Jaufre is currently working on seems to be a guide to various herbal remedies. He turns the page, curious, and on the next page are drawings of plants and flowers, labeled with their names and some common ailments that they might be used to treat. Brother Peire considers the drawings for a minute, remembers his clumsy attempts at illuminated capitals, and wonders if he would have to copy many illustrated manuscripts if he were to take this on as his work.
"He's very good with illustrations," Rainaut says, leaning over his shoulder. "Jaufre. I think that's why he's doing a medical text."
"Does he get a choice in what he works on?"
"Yes and no. There are some manuscripts that are in greater danger of falling apart, but not many of those are illustrated and we copy them mostly to preserve them as histories or texts to study, so they don't always need to be pretty. They just have to be legible. Jaufre isn't the only copyist, but this is his only job, and sometimes he'll work on more than one thing at a time."
Brother Peire takes a look at the half-copied page on the desk, noting the lightly scored lines so Jaufre can place the text correctly. The margins are wide all around the page, marked out with the same faint scores as the guides for the text, and the letters themselves are sharp and dark and evenly spaced, unlike the letters of the original manuscript. Jaufre has a very consistent hand. Brother Peire's writing is likewise even and legible, although not quite as nice as this. But it's possible Jaufre has been doing it longer.
As if thinking about him has conjured him, someone enters the room, sees them, and says "Rainaut! Have you brought me an assistant?"
"I might have," Rainaut says. "Peire, this is Jaufre. Our copyist."
"Well, right now I am. I think Sengrat has decided he'd rather work in the kitchen. So you're thinking of joining me?" he asks Brother Peire. "Were you admiring my work?" He grins, unconcerned that a stranger might have been passing judgement on his lettering. He's blond and solid-looking and bears a resemblance to Brother Gueri, enough that Brother Peire might think they were cousins if not for the fact that Jaufre doesn't share Brother Gueri's northern accent, and Brother Gueri never admitted to having any family near Montagui.
Although if one of his cousins was a heretic, he wouldn't share that.
"I worked in the copy room at the friary," Brother Peire tells him now. "I need something to do here and this is, um, this would be - "
"Eminently acceptable?" Another grin. "I could use the company. Copying can be very solitary work, especially when there's only one of you. Come back after midday prayers and I'll show you what to do."
"You don't need to see my, my handwriting?"
"If you did this for your friary, you must have neat print. I've never known a copyist who didn't."
"That's hard to read." Brother Peire points to the original text with its cramped letters.
"It was legible when it was written. Writing styles change, even from place to place. Anyway. I have to get back to work. I was just taking a quick walk around the cloister, but it put me behind. It was good to meet you face to face," he tells Brother Peire. "If you've done this before you shouldn't have any problems."
"We'll leave you to it," Rainaut says, leading Brother Peire back through the workrooms and outside.
Next is the bath house, with its tubs and buckets and cabinets of towels, and after that a stroll around the church and into a small building next to it. Brother Peire guesses this is the chapel. The door is closed but not locked, and Rainaut pushes it open and ushers Brother Peire inside.
It's small and square, with plain wood pews and whitewashed plaster walls. The altar isn't much more than a bench made of wood the color of dark honey, but it's polished to a high shine and there's a tall silver candlestick with a tall white candle at either end. The altar cloth is dark blue, nearly purple, and the round window in the wall behind the altar is made of clear glass with a yellow circle in the center. Painted vines climb up the wall and twine around the window and reach for the dark wood beams of the roof.
Brother Peire turns to look for the eternal lamp hanging inside the doorway. It's very simple, made of pierced tin, but the flame inside is steady and he's once again comforted to know that it's there. For all their apostasy, these heretics still believe in the light of God's love.
"The door doesn't lock," Rainaut explains, his voice quiet as if showing respect for this sacred place. "Anyone can come in at any time, for any reason. If you want to keep your old worship schedule, you can. No one will argue if you duck in here for an afternoon prayer."
"What about the work that I'm supposed to be doing?" Brother Peire asks. Rainaut shrugs.
"As long as you're not idling to no purpose. We believe in worship through work, with leisure afterwards. Rest is important too, and some time to play or just do nothing. But the work always comes first. That's part of our mandate, to show our love for God and our faithfulness to God's precepts through the work of our hands. But prayer counts as work. Didn't I tell you I want you to be happy here? If it will make you happy to pray eight times a day, then pray eight times a day."
"I don't think I can, without my brother friars."
"Do what makes you happy." Rainaut touches his arm. "I mean it. You don't have to believe what we believe. I like to think you'll accept at least some of our teachings in time, but you don't have to. God will love you whatever you do."
"I don't believe that."
"I do." Now Rainaut takes Brother Peire's face in both hands and presses their foreheads together. "I only want you help you, my brother." Brother Peire stiffens. He thinks he'll always have that reaction to someone to him by a title he no longer has any right to. "No, listen to me. All men and women are brothers and sisters under God. That's what we believe. I was so rude to you at first, but you were nothing but kind to me and I came to care about you. I feel very close to you. Let me be your brother in this life, Peire. I can't replace your brother friars and I don't want to, but we're brothers in my heart and in the eyes of God. It's a term of affection and community and love, and if you can't have your friar family back, you can make a new family here."
Brother Peire closes his eyes. He wants to feel the way about Rainaut that Rainaut feels about him, that they can be brothers with a shared faith, that they can both be part of this new family. He doesn't know if he can. But he knows that he cares for Rainaut too, and he knows Rainaut is genuinely trying to help him, and he decided he would try to accept that help, didn't he? He decided that he would try to live here as best he could.
Rainaut straightens up and presses his lips to Brother Peire's forehead. "God will hear you here," he murmurs. "In the chapel. Believe that, if you believe nothing else. It was the very first building the monks erected, when they decided to establish their monastery here. It's been consecrated for a long time."
He steps back and Brother Peire feels suddenly, oddly bereft.
"Do you want to sit for a while?" Rainaut asks. "Although I think the bell is going to ring soon for the midday service. I took a long time to walk you around."
"I don't know what I want," Brother Peire says honestly.
"Then let's sit and contemplate things until it's time for the service."
So they do just that. It doesn't seem very long before the bell is ringing to call them to worship, and after that is a quick lunch, and then Rainaut takes Brother Peire back to the workrooms and turns him over to Jaufre, so he can get down to the work of copying.
For the next few days Brother Peire works and worships and eats and meets more people and tries to adjust to the rhythm of life in the heretic community. It turns out that there are no empty cells for him to move into, but the one night he tries to sleep in the dormitory – thinking that it might be similar enough to the sleeping quarters at the friary to make him feel more comfortable – he can't sleep at all, and ends up back in Rainaut's cell. Rainaut insists on sleeping on the floor so Brother Peire can have the bed, but Brother Peire hates the thought that Rainaut, who is trying so hard to make him feel welcome and part of the commuity, would be rewarded with a bed on the cold floor. He suggests they switch off, so neither has to sleep on the floor all the time.
Adjustment comes very slowly, so slowly Brother Peire isn't sure he's adjusting at all. He keeps waking up in the middle of the night, too used to attending a service in the dark hours. He doesn't feel right conducting the service for himself in the chapel, so he whispers a short prayer to God, asking for quick and dreamless unconsciousness, and closes his eyes and tries to go back to sleep.
But he finds that he really enjoys his work in the copy room, and he likes Jaufre well enough. Jaufre can work for hours in dead silence, and then want to talk to Brother Peire without even caring if Brother Peire talks back. His patter is soothing, though – it reminds Brother Peire that there are still other people in the world, and that he's still part of a community, even if it isn't a community he ever would have chosen for himself. And it's good to be among books and knowledge and even the occasional scripture.
The people are friendly, by and large, and curious about him and how he came to them. Martel, the man from the council, is suspicious but never excessively rude. Brother Peire still tells everyone to stop calling him "brother", even Rainaut. And Rainaut just smiles, and apologizes, and does it again.
All these heretics are making him feel welcome, finding a place for him in their lives and their community, and even though he eats with them and works with them and worships with them, he doesn't feel as if he belongs. He has something to do with his hands but nothing to calm his mind, and despite his attempts to fill his days so he doesn't have time to think about who he was and who he could be, he can't help but wonder why he's here and what God wants from him, and what is he supposed to do?
He tries to share this with Rainaut, but Rainaut's answer is merely “God wants you to be here”, which isn't the answer Brother Peire wants. He doesn't think it's the answer God would give, but who is he to say what God might or might not want? He's just a friar, and a friar without an order at that.
Except he isn't a friar any more, not by any definition that anyone else would care about. He's only a friar in his heart. His own order turned him out.
And he keeps waking up in time for a late night service he'll never be able to attend.
Finally one night he gets out of bed, puts on his sandals, and creeps out of the cell and across the cloister and around the church to the little chapel. The only light is from the eternal lamp by the door, but he's been told that the candles on the altar are there to be lit by whoever comes to worship, and he's been told where the striker is to light them. So he lights both candles and kneels on the floor in front of the altar and confesses his unhappiness to God.
I am ungrateful, my Lord, he confesses in his head, sending his thoughts to Heaven. These people are trying to help me and I can't accept it. I don't belong here. I can't go home, but I can't stay here. I don't know how.
He looks up at the altar and the wall behind it, the painted vines twining up the plaster and the round window with the glass sun at its center.
Please, my Lord, please show me what to do. Show me what You mean for me to do. Is this my path? Is this what You want for me, to live among heretics and work with them and worship at their services? They can't be converted. They won't be swayed. Forgive me, Lord, but I haven't even tried.
I'm so lost here. I don't share their beliefs. They're kind enough but this will never be home. Rainaut is good to me and he calls me brother and I know he means well but it hurts me to hear it from his mouth. My brothers have been cut off from me, and he is a heretic.
Please, my Lord, please help me. Please show me the path You want me to take. If this is it, give me a sign. But please, please, do not let this be my life. Please let me go home.
He can't form a coherent prayer any more. He only hopes God will see the pain in his heart and send him some comfort.
He feels a hand on his head and a gentle voice saying his name. Rainaut.
"He doesn't hear me," Brother Peire says.
"Who?"
"God. He can't hear me in this place."
"How do you know?"
But Brother Peire has no answer that Rainaut will understand.
"Come back to the cell, Piere. Come back to bed. This is only causing you pain."
words: 2744
total words: 26,451
The copy room is at the end of the long hall. There are only three desks, placed to catch as much light as possible.
"There should be someone here," Rainaut comments, sounding a little confused. "In any case, this is the copy room. Copyists work as long as there's sun, although in the winter they resort to candles. We have a library, as you saw, but a lot of the scrolls and manuscripts there are in bad shape – some of them were left by the monks, who probably thought they were a touch too blasphemous to take when the community disbanded. So we copy them more legibly. We also have a few books of scripture, and yes, before you ask, you'll consider it heretical scripture, and we want to copy those to help seed other communities like ours in other places." He gestures to the only desk that looks as if someone is working at it. There are pens and open pots of ink and sheets of parchment, and on a table next to the desk is an open book which is apparently the manuscript being copied. "How similar was the copy room at the friary?"
"It was next to the library," Brother Peire says. "And smaller. The desks were closer together."
"Jaufre is supposed to be here. Should we wait for him so you can talk to him, or should I continue the tour?"
"How much more is there to see?"
"There's the bath house and the chapel. I was going to save the chapel for last. I think you'll like it."
"I think I like the copy room too." Brother Peire walks over to the table to see what the copyist – Jaufre – is working on. The letters are thick and round and very close together, making the words hard to read, but he manages to decipher enough to determine that this must be a kind of physicians' manual, and the page that Jaufre is currently working on seems to be a guide to various herbal remedies. He turns the page, curious, and on the next page are drawings of plants and flowers, labeled with their names and some common ailments that they might be used to treat. Brother Peire considers the drawings for a minute, remembers his clumsy attempts at illuminated capitals, and wonders if he would have to copy many illustrated manuscripts if he were to take this on as his work.
"He's very good with illustrations," Rainaut says, leaning over his shoulder. "Jaufre. I think that's why he's doing a medical text."
"Does he get a choice in what he works on?"
"Yes and no. There are some manuscripts that are in greater danger of falling apart, but not many of those are illustrated and we copy them mostly to preserve them as histories or texts to study, so they don't always need to be pretty. They just have to be legible. Jaufre isn't the only copyist, but this is his only job, and sometimes he'll work on more than one thing at a time."
Brother Peire takes a look at the half-copied page on the desk, noting the lightly scored lines so Jaufre can place the text correctly. The margins are wide all around the page, marked out with the same faint scores as the guides for the text, and the letters themselves are sharp and dark and evenly spaced, unlike the letters of the original manuscript. Jaufre has a very consistent hand. Brother Peire's writing is likewise even and legible, although not quite as nice as this. But it's possible Jaufre has been doing it longer.
As if thinking about him has conjured him, someone enters the room, sees them, and says "Rainaut! Have you brought me an assistant?"
"I might have," Rainaut says. "Peire, this is Jaufre. Our copyist."
"Well, right now I am. I think Sengrat has decided he'd rather work in the kitchen. So you're thinking of joining me?" he asks Brother Peire. "Were you admiring my work?" He grins, unconcerned that a stranger might have been passing judgement on his lettering. He's blond and solid-looking and bears a resemblance to Brother Gueri, enough that Brother Peire might think they were cousins if not for the fact that Jaufre doesn't share Brother Gueri's northern accent, and Brother Gueri never admitted to having any family near Montagui.
Although if one of his cousins was a heretic, he wouldn't share that.
"I worked in the copy room at the friary," Brother Peire tells him now. "I need something to do here and this is, um, this would be - "
"Eminently acceptable?" Another grin. "I could use the company. Copying can be very solitary work, especially when there's only one of you. Come back after midday prayers and I'll show you what to do."
"You don't need to see my, my handwriting?"
"If you did this for your friary, you must have neat print. I've never known a copyist who didn't."
"That's hard to read." Brother Peire points to the original text with its cramped letters.
"It was legible when it was written. Writing styles change, even from place to place. Anyway. I have to get back to work. I was just taking a quick walk around the cloister, but it put me behind. It was good to meet you face to face," he tells Brother Peire. "If you've done this before you shouldn't have any problems."
"We'll leave you to it," Rainaut says, leading Brother Peire back through the workrooms and outside.
Next is the bath house, with its tubs and buckets and cabinets of towels, and after that a stroll around the church and into a small building next to it. Brother Peire guesses this is the chapel. The door is closed but not locked, and Rainaut pushes it open and ushers Brother Peire inside.
It's small and square, with plain wood pews and whitewashed plaster walls. The altar isn't much more than a bench made of wood the color of dark honey, but it's polished to a high shine and there's a tall silver candlestick with a tall white candle at either end. The altar cloth is dark blue, nearly purple, and the round window in the wall behind the altar is made of clear glass with a yellow circle in the center. Painted vines climb up the wall and twine around the window and reach for the dark wood beams of the roof.
Brother Peire turns to look for the eternal lamp hanging inside the doorway. It's very simple, made of pierced tin, but the flame inside is steady and he's once again comforted to know that it's there. For all their apostasy, these heretics still believe in the light of God's love.
"The door doesn't lock," Rainaut explains, his voice quiet as if showing respect for this sacred place. "Anyone can come in at any time, for any reason. If you want to keep your old worship schedule, you can. No one will argue if you duck in here for an afternoon prayer."
"What about the work that I'm supposed to be doing?" Brother Peire asks. Rainaut shrugs.
"As long as you're not idling to no purpose. We believe in worship through work, with leisure afterwards. Rest is important too, and some time to play or just do nothing. But the work always comes first. That's part of our mandate, to show our love for God and our faithfulness to God's precepts through the work of our hands. But prayer counts as work. Didn't I tell you I want you to be happy here? If it will make you happy to pray eight times a day, then pray eight times a day."
"I don't think I can, without my brother friars."
"Do what makes you happy." Rainaut touches his arm. "I mean it. You don't have to believe what we believe. I like to think you'll accept at least some of our teachings in time, but you don't have to. God will love you whatever you do."
"I don't believe that."
"I do." Now Rainaut takes Brother Peire's face in both hands and presses their foreheads together. "I only want you help you, my brother." Brother Peire stiffens. He thinks he'll always have that reaction to someone to him by a title he no longer has any right to. "No, listen to me. All men and women are brothers and sisters under God. That's what we believe. I was so rude to you at first, but you were nothing but kind to me and I came to care about you. I feel very close to you. Let me be your brother in this life, Peire. I can't replace your brother friars and I don't want to, but we're brothers in my heart and in the eyes of God. It's a term of affection and community and love, and if you can't have your friar family back, you can make a new family here."
Brother Peire closes his eyes. He wants to feel the way about Rainaut that Rainaut feels about him, that they can be brothers with a shared faith, that they can both be part of this new family. He doesn't know if he can. But he knows that he cares for Rainaut too, and he knows Rainaut is genuinely trying to help him, and he decided he would try to accept that help, didn't he? He decided that he would try to live here as best he could.
Rainaut straightens up and presses his lips to Brother Peire's forehead. "God will hear you here," he murmurs. "In the chapel. Believe that, if you believe nothing else. It was the very first building the monks erected, when they decided to establish their monastery here. It's been consecrated for a long time."
He steps back and Brother Peire feels suddenly, oddly bereft.
"Do you want to sit for a while?" Rainaut asks. "Although I think the bell is going to ring soon for the midday service. I took a long time to walk you around."
"I don't know what I want," Brother Peire says honestly.
"Then let's sit and contemplate things until it's time for the service."
So they do just that. It doesn't seem very long before the bell is ringing to call them to worship, and after that is a quick lunch, and then Rainaut takes Brother Peire back to the workrooms and turns him over to Jaufre, so he can get down to the work of copying.
For the next few days Brother Peire works and worships and eats and meets more people and tries to adjust to the rhythm of life in the heretic community. It turns out that there are no empty cells for him to move into, but the one night he tries to sleep in the dormitory – thinking that it might be similar enough to the sleeping quarters at the friary to make him feel more comfortable – he can't sleep at all, and ends up back in Rainaut's cell. Rainaut insists on sleeping on the floor so Brother Peire can have the bed, but Brother Peire hates the thought that Rainaut, who is trying so hard to make him feel welcome and part of the commuity, would be rewarded with a bed on the cold floor. He suggests they switch off, so neither has to sleep on the floor all the time.
Adjustment comes very slowly, so slowly Brother Peire isn't sure he's adjusting at all. He keeps waking up in the middle of the night, too used to attending a service in the dark hours. He doesn't feel right conducting the service for himself in the chapel, so he whispers a short prayer to God, asking for quick and dreamless unconsciousness, and closes his eyes and tries to go back to sleep.
But he finds that he really enjoys his work in the copy room, and he likes Jaufre well enough. Jaufre can work for hours in dead silence, and then want to talk to Brother Peire without even caring if Brother Peire talks back. His patter is soothing, though – it reminds Brother Peire that there are still other people in the world, and that he's still part of a community, even if it isn't a community he ever would have chosen for himself. And it's good to be among books and knowledge and even the occasional scripture.
The people are friendly, by and large, and curious about him and how he came to them. Martel, the man from the council, is suspicious but never excessively rude. Brother Peire still tells everyone to stop calling him "brother", even Rainaut. And Rainaut just smiles, and apologizes, and does it again.
All these heretics are making him feel welcome, finding a place for him in their lives and their community, and even though he eats with them and works with them and worships with them, he doesn't feel as if he belongs. He has something to do with his hands but nothing to calm his mind, and despite his attempts to fill his days so he doesn't have time to think about who he was and who he could be, he can't help but wonder why he's here and what God wants from him, and what is he supposed to do?
He tries to share this with Rainaut, but Rainaut's answer is merely “God wants you to be here”, which isn't the answer Brother Peire wants. He doesn't think it's the answer God would give, but who is he to say what God might or might not want? He's just a friar, and a friar without an order at that.
Except he isn't a friar any more, not by any definition that anyone else would care about. He's only a friar in his heart. His own order turned him out.
And he keeps waking up in time for a late night service he'll never be able to attend.
Finally one night he gets out of bed, puts on his sandals, and creeps out of the cell and across the cloister and around the church to the little chapel. The only light is from the eternal lamp by the door, but he's been told that the candles on the altar are there to be lit by whoever comes to worship, and he's been told where the striker is to light them. So he lights both candles and kneels on the floor in front of the altar and confesses his unhappiness to God.
I am ungrateful, my Lord, he confesses in his head, sending his thoughts to Heaven. These people are trying to help me and I can't accept it. I don't belong here. I can't go home, but I can't stay here. I don't know how.
He looks up at the altar and the wall behind it, the painted vines twining up the plaster and the round window with the glass sun at its center.
Please, my Lord, please show me what to do. Show me what You mean for me to do. Is this my path? Is this what You want for me, to live among heretics and work with them and worship at their services? They can't be converted. They won't be swayed. Forgive me, Lord, but I haven't even tried.
I'm so lost here. I don't share their beliefs. They're kind enough but this will never be home. Rainaut is good to me and he calls me brother and I know he means well but it hurts me to hear it from his mouth. My brothers have been cut off from me, and he is a heretic.
Please, my Lord, please help me. Please show me the path You want me to take. If this is it, give me a sign. But please, please, do not let this be my life. Please let me go home.
He can't form a coherent prayer any more. He only hopes God will see the pain in his heart and send him some comfort.
He feels a hand on his head and a gentle voice saying his name. Rainaut.
"He doesn't hear me," Brother Peire says.
"Who?"
"God. He can't hear me in this place."
"How do you know?"
But Brother Peire has no answer that Rainaut will understand.
"Come back to the cell, Piere. Come back to bed. This is only causing you pain."
words: 2744
total words: 26,451
