The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [110]
‘Someone to see you,’ the lay brother replied. ‘I’m walking off a little way now,’ he added. And it was with a slight shock of surprise, a moment or two later, that Adam realized who it must be.
She was standing in front of him. He could smell her. He was, as only the blind can be, aware of her whole presence. He wanted to reach out to touch her, but hesitated. It seemed to him that she was not alone.
‘Brother Adam.’ Her voice. She spoke calmly, softly. ‘I have brought someone to see you.’
‘Oh. Who is that?’
‘My youngest child. A little boy.’
‘I see.’
‘Will you give him your blessing?’
‘My blessing?’ He was almost surprised. It was a natural thing to ask of a monk, but, knowing what she did about him … ‘For what my blessing is worth,’ he said. ‘How old is the boy?’
‘He is five.’
‘Ah. A nice age.’ He smiled. ‘His name?’
‘I called him Adam.’
‘Oh. My name.’
He felt her move very close, her body almost touching, but so that she could whisper, close in his ear. ‘He is your son.’
‘My son?’ The revelation hit him so that he almost staggered back. It was as if, in his world of darkness, there had been a great flash of golden light.
‘He doesn’t know.’
‘You …’ His voice was hoarse. ‘You are sure?’
‘Yes.’ She was standing back now.
For a moment he stood there in the sunlight, quite still, though he felt as if he might be swaying. ‘Come, little Adam,’ he said quietly. And when the small boy approached, he reached down with his hands and felt his head, then his face. He would have liked to lift him, feel him, press him to him. But he could not do this. ‘So, Adam,’ he said gently, ‘be a good boy, do as your mother tells you and accept another Adam’s blessing.’ Resting his hand on the boy’s head, he recited a brief prayer.
He wanted so much to give the boy something. He wondered what. Then, suddenly remembering, he drew out the cedarwood crucifix that, so long ago, his mother had given him and, with a single pull, broke the leather string that secured it round his neck and handed it to the boy. ‘My mother gave me this, Adam,’ he said. ‘They say a crusader brought it from the Holy Land. Keep it always.’ He turned to Mary with a shrug. ‘It is all that I have.’
They went, then, and soon afterwards he and Luke made their way back towards the abbey.
They did not speak, except once, halfway along the path through the woods.
‘Does the boy look like me?’
‘Yes.’
Of all the times, during the long years of his blind existence, it was on those sunny afternoons as he sat quietly meditating in the carrels in the sheltered north wall of the abbey cloister, that Brother Adam appeared most serene. It seemed to the younger monks that, being obviously very close to God, Brother Adam was in a silent communion that it would be impious to interrupt. And sometimes he was. But sometimes, also, as he smelled the grass and the daisies in the cloister, and felt the warm sun coming from over the frater, it was another thought that filled his mind with a joy and delight which, if it led him down even to perdition, he could not help.
I have a son. Dear God, I have a son.
One afternoon, when he was all alone with no one to see, he even took out a small knife he had been using earlier in the day, and discreetly carved a little letter ‘A’ in the stone beside him.
‘A’ for Adam. And sometimes, he thought, if his punishment was to be cast out of God’s garden into some darker place, then still, perhaps, for the sake of his son, he would do it all again.
So, for many years, Brother Adam lived with his secret, in the abbey of Beaulieu.
LYMINGTON
1480
Friday. Fish market day in Lymington. On Wednesdays and Fridays, at eight o’clock in the morning, for one hour, the fishermen set out their stalls.
A warm early April morning. The smell of fresh fish was delicious. Many of them had been landed down at the little wharf that dawn. There were eels and oysters from