Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [106]
Seated across the room, Brother Thomas glowered at Joan. This priesthood is mine, he thought bitterly. I was Raban’s choice; didn’t he say as much only a few weeks ago?
John Anglicus’s cure of the leper woman had changed everything. It was infuriating. Madalgis was a nobody, a slave, or little better. What difference did it make if she went to the leprosarium—or lived or died for that matter?
That the prize should go to John Anglicus was bitter gall. From the very first, Thomas had hated him—hated the quickness of his wit, of which he had often felt the barb, hated the ease with which he had mastered his lessons. Such things did not come easily to Thomas. He had had to slave to learn the forms of Latin and memorize the chapters of the rule. But what Thomas lacked in brilliance he made up for in persistence, and in the effort he put into the outward forms of faith. Whenever he finished with his meal, Thomas took care to lay his knife and spoon down perpendicularly, in tribute to the Blessed Cross. He never drank his wine straight down like the others but partook of it reverently, three sips at a time, in pious illustration of the miracle of the Trinity. John Anglicus didn’t trouble himself with such acts of devotion.
Thomas glared at his rival, so angelic looking with his fine halo of white-gold hair. May Hell dry him up with its flames, him and the God-cursed womb that engendered him!
THE refectory, or monks’ dining hall, was a masonry-walled structure forty feet wide and one hundred feet long, built large to accommodate all three hundred and fifty of the Fulda brethren at once. With seven tall windows on the south wall and six on the north, letting in direct sunlight year-round, it was one of the most cheerful of all the cloister buildings. The wide wooden beams and purlins supporting the rafters were colorfully painted with scenes from the life of Boniface, patron saint of Fulda; these added to the impression of brightness and light, so the room was as cheerful and pleasant now, in the cold, short days of Heilagmanoth, as it was in summertime.
It was noontime, and the brothers were assembled in the refectory for dinner, the first of the day’s two meals. Abbot Raban sat at a long U-shaped table centered on the east wall, flanked by twelve brothers on his left and twelve on his right, representing Christ’s apostles. The long planked tables bore simple plates of bread, pulse, and cheese. Mice scurried about on the earthen floor beneath, in furtive search of fallen crumbs.
In accordance with the Rule of St. Benedict, the brothers always took their meal without speaking. The strict silence was broken only by the clink of metal knives and cups and the voice of the lector for the week, who stood at the pulpit reading from the Psalms or the Lives of the Fathers. “As the mortal body partakes of earthly food,” Abbot Raban liked to say, “so let the soul derive spiritual sustenance.”
The regula taciturnitis, or rule of silence, was an ideal, commended by all but observed by few. The brothers had worked out an elaborate scheme of hand signs and facial gestures with which they communicated during meals. Entire conversations could be carried on in this manner, especially when, as now, the reader was poor. Brother Thomas read in a harsh, heavily accented voice that completely missed the lilting poetry of the Psalms; oblivious to his shortcomings, Thomas read loudly, his voice grating on the brethren’s ears. Abbot Raban often asked Brother Thomas to read, preferring him to the monastery’s more skilled readers, for, as he said, “too sweet a voice invites demons into the heart.”
“Pssst.” A muted hissing drew Joan’s attention. She looked up from her plate to see Brother Adalgar signaling her across the table.
He held up four fingers. The number signified a chapter from the Rule