Buono’s Tale

The merchant returned minutes later with paper, pen, and a small bottle of ink. Ennio wrote out the Gospel first and set it aside to dry.

‘Dearest Brother,’ he wrote on the second sheet of paper, “You wished me to write you on the day I was to be tonsured, and now that day has come.’ Ennio dipped the reed pen in the ink and considered his words. ‘I had no reason to fear the razor after all—I felt nothing.’

The merchant waited, staring over Ennio’s shoulder. “Do you read Latin?” Ennio asked.

“No,” the merchant admitted.

‘You will not hear from me any more, as Father Abbot has already sent me out of the monastery,’ Ennio continued. ‘Pray, Brother, that God will guide me in my holy mission—’ Ennio winced as he wrote the lie— ‘to convert the pagan Slavs. I go now, knowing I shall not return. Give my love to Mother and Father.’

‘Your obedient little brother, Ennio’

He handed the wet page to the merchant. “Will you seal this for me? It goes to the bishop at Ravenna.”

“To… Ravenna? I don’t do much business there. It could take some months.”

“No matter,” Ennio said, “So long as it gets there.”

“But I—”

“You gave me a whole denarius just for a blessing, didn’t you? And now you have this.” Ennio handed him the other sheet. “The fourteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Mark.”

“But this is in Greek!”

“You say you don’t read Latin. Do you read Greek?”

“Only enough to do business. I have a scribe, but—”

“Mark wrote it in Greek; you should read it in Greek.”

The merchant studied the page. “You are a very strange monk, Brother.”

“So they all tell me,” Ennio agreed. He blessed the merchant again and sent him away. When the other man was out of sight, Ennio pulled his filthy habit off over his head and tossed it into a clump of weeds.

Ennio kicked off his rope sandals and stood barefoot, wearing only his white linen under-tunic. He faced the sun and let it warm him. A breeze blew out to sea.

No one else was around. The dock was long enough for several boats or a small ship, but none were tied to it. Ennio stepped onto the weather-beaten planks and began walking. He watched the fishing boats drag their nets in the lagoon. A few paces from the edge, he closed his eyes and lengthened his stride.  One, two, three big steps—then Ennio’s foot came down on empty air and he plunged under the water.

END OF CHAPTER ONE

FIRST                 PREVIOUS  

Ennio bowed low.  “Father Abbot, I–”

“You are excommunicated, young man. Leave immediately.”

Brother Linus lifted his hand to Ennio’s brow, but at the abbot’s glare he choked back his blessing. Linus let the hand fall to his side, and Ennio went down the stairs.  

Pio lay at the bottom moaning and wailing, his scalp torn open and his arms scraped raw. When Ennio passed he flashed the excommunicant a blood-covered smirk. Ennio feinted a kick at his head and Pio cringed away.

Ennio opened the front door. The rising sun, fat and orange, stared him in the face. At the top of the stairs Brother Linus and the abbot turned their backs to him. Ennio shielded his eyes and walked into the blinding light.

At the edge of the grounds he turned to look at the monastery, a low stone building on a grassy hill. Red spots danced in his vision. Through them he could see faces in the windows, watching. Ennio turned his back and marched away.

“Ennio! Wait!” Footsteps thudded behind him.

Ennio stopped but did not turn around. “What is it, Brother?”  

“Wait a month, or two. Then come back,” Brother Linus said. “Father Abbot will take you in again if you are penitent.”

“And that bastard Pio?”

“I will deal with him. You must not give Pio another thought.”

“Then I’m no penitent,” Ennio said, “for if I see Pio again he’ll not last the day.”

“Ennio, let me—”

“Farewell, Brother.”

It was only a short walk north to the edge of the island, where the docks reeked of rotting weeds and fish guts. Most of the fishing boats had already put to sea. Ennio sat against a piling and watched their sails weave through the Venetian lagoon.

He ran his hand through a full head of hair. By now his scalp should have been shaved smooth by Brother Linus and anointed with oil. By now Ennio should have vowed to live by the Rule of the monastery, and Father Abbot should have blessed Brother Ennio and called on the Lord Christ to help him keep those vows.

A silver coin dropped into Ennio’s lap. “Will you bless me, Brother?” a man asked. He wore leather boots and a long tunic of bright blue wool.

Ennio wanted to rip apart his brown habit and throw it in the sea. “Oh, for the love of—” The merchant dropped to his knees and waited.

“Innominepatrisetfiliietspiritusanctiamen,” Ennio said. “Here, keep this.” He threw the coin back at the man.

“But you have to take it!’ the merchant said, “Otherwise it doesn’t count.”

“I don’t want money.”

“Food, then?”

“No.”

“I must give you something!”

Ennio sighed. The merchant pouted and shifted on his knees.

“All right,” Ennio said. “Can you get paper and a pen with ink?”

“Certainly, Brother! In my counting-house.”

“If you have two sheets, I’ll write a Gospel for you on one of them.”

“Oh, thank you!  Thank you!” the merchant stood, hiked his tunic up to his thighs, and ran off to the counting-house.

Ennio scratched at his lice-infested habit. He looked out to sea. With deep satisfaction, he remembered that he didn’t know how to swim.

Ennio woke with a start. Brother Linus stood in his doorway, framed by red sunlight. Ennio prayed he hadn’t been snoring. He sat up on the edge of the bed.

“Brother Linus! I’m honored—I didn’t think you’d come for me.”

The monk walked in, his hands clasped behind him. He stepped aside to make room for Pio and Angelus. The three frowning men crowded into Ennio’s tiny bedchamber.

Ennio stood, stooping his head under a low ceiling-beam. “God bless you, Brother, what is this?”

“Where did you go after I left you last night, Ennio?”

“The chapel, as I said.”

“And then?”

Ennio looked at Angelus, small and fair. The boy glanced away. Pio returned Ennio’s gaze with an easy smirk.

“That is for these men to say, Brother,” Ennio replied.

“Then you admit you were with them?” Brother Linus asked.

“Of course.”

“In the pantry?”

“Yes.”

“Ennio, Ennio.” Brother Linus shook his head. “Our life is not for all men. Many others have come almost to the moment of their vows, and then done a thing like this to excuse themselves.”

Ennio fixed Pio with a cold stare. “What did you tell the Brother?”

Tears welled in Pio’s eyes. “Everything, Ennio! Everything! I had to confess. How the devil made us so hungry. How Angelus and I went to pray in the chapel, and how we found you there. How you took pity on us, and gave us bread from the pantry.”

“What? You—” Ennio sputtered.

“But the wine, you kept for yourself,” Pio said.

“Noviate,” Brother Linus said, “What is under your bed?”

Ennio bowed his head. “Nothing, Brother. The floor.”

“Show me.”

Ennio got on his hands and knees and reached under the bed. His hand closed on the empty wine bottle and he brought it out. He stood, fuming.

“You told us it would be all right,” Angelus said, “You said you could give it to us because you were going to be tonsured a monk today.”

“Well spoken,” Ennio said. “How long did Pio have to rehearse you?”

Brother Linus put his hand on Ennio’s shoulder. “Will you confess your sin now, Ennio? It’s not too late.”

“I confess that I showed these two too much mercy, when I caught them eating and drinking in the pantry.”

Linus frowned. “Do you say they lie?”

“I do.”

Brother Linus turned to Angelus. “Well, Angelus? What is the truth.”

Angelus crossed himself quickly. He looked at the floor. “By the Lord Christ, it all happened just as Pio said it.”

Ennio brushed Linus’s hand off his shoulder. He snatched a fistful of blond hair from Angelus’s forelock and pulled the boy up on his tiptoes.

“Ow!  Ennio, what are you—”

“You little shit.” Ennio struck Angelus down to the floor with his open hand.

“Noviate!  Ennio, stop!” Linus pleaded. Ennio pushed him out of the way. He seized the front of Pio’s habit in both hands.

“God curse you, you damned liar!” Ennio shoved Pio out the door and down the hallway. The other noviates and monks rose from sleep or prayer and gaped from their doorways.

“Goodness, Ennio!” Pio said. His feet slipped and scrambled on the floor as Ennio drove him backwards. “You’re playing your part in this even better than I expected.”

“Shut up.” They reached the stairs, and Ennio pushed. Pio fumbled for the railing and missed. He tumbled end over end, banging his head on the stone steps and wall.

Brother Linus pinned Ennio’s arms from behind. Ennio didn’t resist.

“Ennio, you poor fool,” Linus whispered. “I believed you! It would have been all right. But after this…” Pio lay moaning, a crumpled mess at the bottom of the stairs.

A gray-bearded monk stepped over Pio. He gathered up his habit in both hands and sped up the stairs, his gold cross swaying on its chain.

“Father Abbot—” Ennio began. The head monk cut him off with a sharp slap across the cheek.

“Get out.”

A heavy thumping sound startled Ennio. He looked up. “Clumsy moron!” he heard a voice whisper.

Ennio sprang to his feet. He took the taper and went out into the hallway. Shielding the light with his hand, he crept toward the monastery kitchen.

“Don’t call me names!” another voice said. “And you pushed me into it, anyway.”

“Just help me lift it up, will you? And keep your voice low!”

Ennio glided over the sanded pine planks of the kitchen floor. The door to the pantry was unlatched. It opened without a sound; someone had greased the hinges. Ennio stepped inside. He took his hand away and let the taper light his face. 

“Pio. Angleus,” Ennio said. The two noviates froze, each holding one end of a sack of grain. The shadows around them swayed and flickered in the light of a sputtering oil lamp.

“Ennio,” Pio answered. “This sack of grain fell over, we were putting it back. Can you help us?”

“What were you two doing in here?” Ennio asked. “Ah. I see.” Next to the oil lamp was half a loaf of bread and an empty bottle of wine.

“Forgive us, Brother, we were weak,” Pio said.

“Don’t call me that. I am a noviate, like you.” Ennio said.

“Of course,” Pio said, “But soon we will all have the honor of calling you Brother. Do you know what else they call you? Il Buono. The good. And so we confess you our sins, Noviate Buono, and do humbly repent. Don’t we, Angelus?”

“You won’t tell Brother Linus, will you?” Angelus pleaded.

“I must,” Ennio said. “To take food and drink in the night is wrong for two reasons you take it from the mouths of others, and it is gluttony. Brother Linus must name your penance.”

“You are good and just. But why trouble Brother Linus?” Pio said. “You know how he loves you, and looks forward to your tonsuring tomorrow. Let our sin not weigh on his mind. We will confess to him in the morning, after your tonsure.”

“But the Rule…”

“We’ll fast,” Angelus offered. “Then we won’t have had any extra.”

“You will still confess it to Brother Linus.”

“Yes, of course,” Pio agreed, “We fast, and then do what penance Brother Linus directs. And after his tonsure, good Brother Buono will guide us as well.”

“Only as God gives me the wisdom,” Ennio said.

“And He has!” Pio cooed, “Truly He sent you to stop us in our sinning.”

Ennio let his chest puff a little. “Clean up this mess,” he ordered, “and back to your beds.”

“Of course, Ennio,” Pio said. “And Ennio? Will you pray for us tonight?”

Ennio returned to the chapel and knelt. He spoke the Pater Noster again, quietly, listening to the sounds of Pio and Angelus putting the pantry back in order. After a while he heard them latch the pantry door and climb the stairs to their rooms. He prayed for the two noviates, and for himself.

The taper had burned down to a stub. Ennio rose, yawning. He blew out the flame and found his way out of the chapel by the faint moonlight, then felt his way back up the stone stairs. He knelt again at his bedside.

“In nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti, amen.” Ennio yawned through his bedtime prayers and rolled under his blanket.

“Brother Buono,” he heard himself say, and then he was asleep.

NEXT

 NEXT

ONE

Malamocco, Venice — 800 A.D.

Ennio felt his way down the darkened stairway, sliding a hand along the cool stone wall. The air was sharp and the rough wood of the stairs stole heat from his bare toes. He hugged his free arm to his chest inside his coarse-woven habit. The night chill had not slowed the lice. They bit into Ennio for warmth, and he scratched at them.

A light appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “Who’s up there?” a voice called. 

“Me,” Ennio replied. He stepped into the light’s glow. It came from a small taper held by a monk in a brown robe. The cold had made the other monk’s cheeks stand out red against his pinched white face. A halo of hair ringed his bare scalp.

“Oh, Brother Ennio! I might have known.”

“You can’t call me that yet, Brother Paolo. See?” Ennio gathered a fistful of tangled brown hair from the top of his head..

“Soon enough,” the monk said. “God has blessed you, Ennio. You’re a pious and intelligent young man.”

“I am unworthy, Brother.”

“Oh, I doubt that. You go to the chapel?”

“I do.”

“Take this.” the monk handed Ennio his taper. “And don’t stay up too late praying. If you nod off during the tonsure I might cut you with the razor.”

“I won’t, Brother.”

The monk felt his way past Ennio and climbed up into the darkness. Ennio continued on to the chapel with the glowing taper. The damp, wide stones of the hallway floor froze the soles of his feet numb.

Ennio would have been able to find the chapel without the light. The air inside was a stew of old incense, candle-smoke, oiled wood and sweat-stained habits. He took a deep breath of it through his nose and stepped inside.

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