Part 22 (1/2)

I yearned for the gannet's strike, the unbegrudging concentration of the heron.

In the camaraderie of rookeries, in the spiteful vigilance of colonies I was at home.

I learned to distrust the allure of the cuckoo and the gossip of starlings, kept faith with doughty bullfinches, levelled my wit too often to the small-minded wren and too often caved in to the pathos of waterhens and panicky corncrakes.

I gave much credence to stragglers, overrated the composure of blackbirds and the folklore of magpies.

But when goldfinch or kingfisher rent the veil of the usual, pinions whispered and braced as I stooped, unwieldy and br.i.m.m.i.n.g, my spurs at the ready.

The Cleric

I heard new words prayed at cows

in the byre, found his sign on the crock and the hidden still, smelled fumes from his censer in the first smokes of morning.

Next thing he was making a progress through gaps, stepping out sites, sinking his crozier deep in the fort-hearth.

If he had stuck to his own cramp-jawed abbesses and intoners dibbling round the enclosure, his Latin and blather of love, his parchments and scheming in letters s.h.i.+pped over water but no, he overbore with his unctions and orders, he had to get in on the ground.

History that planted its standards on his gables and spires ousted me to the marches of skulking and whingeing.

Or did I desert?

Give him his due, in the end he opened my path to a kingdom of such scope and neuter allegiance my emptiness reigns at its whim.

The Hermit

As he prowled the rim of his clearing

where the blade of choice had not spared one stump of affection he was like a ploughshare interred to sustain the whole field of force, from the bitted and high-drawn sideways curve of the horse's neck to the aim held fast in the wrists and elbows the more brutal the pull and the drive, the deeper and quieter the work of refreshment.

The Master

He dwelt in himself

like a rook in an unroofed tower.

To get close I had to maintain a climb up deserted ramparts and not flinch, not raise an eye to search for an eye on the watch from his coign of seclusion.

Deliberately he would unclasp his book of withholding a page at a time, and it was nothing arcane, just the old rules we all had inscribed on our slates.

Each character blocked on the parchment secure in its volume and measure.

Each maxim given its s.p.a.ce.

Tell the truth. Do not be afraid.

Durable, obstinate notions, like quarrymen's hammers and wedges proofed by intransigent service.

Like coping stones where you rest in the balm of the wellspring.

How flimsy I felt climbing down the unrailed stairs on the wall, hearing the purpose and venture in a wingflap above me.

The Scribes

I never warmed to them.

If they were excellent they were petulant and jaggy as the holly tree they rendered down for ink.

And if I never belonged among them, they could never deny me my place.

In the hush of the scriptorium a black pearl kept gathering in them like the old dry glut inside their quills.

In the margin of texts of praise they scratched and clawed.