Heaven's Kingdom: Guy of Gisborne, #0

Heaven’s Kingdom:

Tuck’s story.

A Guy of Gisborne prequel

L. J. Hutton

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Historical Notes

Chapter 1

St Mary’s Priory of Ewenny, Abergavenny, Wales

The Year of Our Lord 1174

Tuck knelt in the choir stalls at the great priory at Abergavenny and did his best to focus on the office going on up at the high altar. It was Lauds, the morning prayers, and once again Brother Cedric was mangling the Latin something shockingly. Why did the prior not do something about that? Surely by now Brother Cedric ought to know what the proper forms were? And yet at least once a week, when it came around to Cedric’s turn to lead whichever office it was, he always made such a shocking mess of the Latin. Perennially idle rather than incapable, Cedric epitomised – but was not the only example in the priory of – an indifferent Norman nobleman’s son who would really rather have not been there, but had had no choice in the matter. It was still disrespectful, though, in Tuck’s eyes, having been brought up with a more Celtic perspective.

Lord, forgive me my sin of pride, Tuck prayed, casting a furtive glance heavenwards and hoping that the sub-prior wouldn’t catch him doing it. It’s not about whether I could do it better, but that he does You no honour, and surely that’s what we are here for? Cedric’s bored yawning and muttering surely makes a mockery of this office. Then ducked his head again before Humbert caught his eye.

Sub-prior Humbert was the bane of Tuck’s life, watching him with a most unchristian fervour, to Tuck’s mind. And Humbert was just a bit too keen with the spanking of the young oblates too.

Thank you, Lord, for sparing me his judgement when I was really young, Tuck offered up next and from the heart. And he had been lucky. He’d come to Ewenny Priory as an oblate, one of the earliest young children to be given to God at this monastery, back around 1160 when the priory had only just achieved conventual status, and the community of monks was in its infancy. That meant that he had had the kindly and very learned Brother Rhys teaching him – a man filled with joy by the acquisition of knowledge and learning, and for passing it on. But that meant that for Tuck, Latin was like a second language, having learnt it as a small child – or rather a third language, since he spoke both English and his native Welsh – and because of that, Brother Cedric’s dire mangling of the holy words grated on every nerve.

God’s hooks! Tuck found himself seething despite his best efforts. Don’t you know that’s supposed to have the genitive ending? It’s ‘servant of God’, so it’s possessive and that means the genitive, not the accusative! How could you not remember that? You had a tutor mostly to yourself all through your childhood. You didn’t have to sit in a class with ten other boys, all older and far ahead of you in their studies, to learn your verbs. Yet we all learned. Brother Osric is no scholar, but he’s learned it the right way, and so has poor Brother Rufus – and he’s been half-blind from birth and so cannot read! So why can’t you?

Granted everybody went through the services by rote, rather than reading it, except for the odd remembrance service which would only come around once a year. But the normal offices which came around week after week, month after month, were repeated so often they were known by heart – so after all these years, surely Cedric knew that? Others, even most of the novices, did so, why didn’t he? Why didn’t he care?

...Lord forgive me that mental outburst, Tuck hurriedly tacked on, but this is all supposed to be to Your glory, so he should get that bit right! We’re supposed to be pure of intent and praying for the benefit of everyone around here, isn’t that what Brother Rhys taught us? We fight the spiritual battles, the nobles fight the earthly ones, and the poor people work the soil to keep our bodies and souls together. If I ever meet a demon, I hope I should acquit myself well in our people’s defence... then his train of thought was shattered by a loud snort from Cedric as he fell asleep mid-chant and woke himself up with his own snore, and heard the resulting giggles from some of the smaller oblates.

Then out of the corner of his eye he caught Sub-prior Humbert, from his position opposite them, beginning to scan the row of stalls where Tuck was, and ducked his head a little more. Like their prior, Father Augustine, Humbert was another aristocratic Norman monk sent over to supposedly bring culture to this border institution, and equally filled with arrogance and disdain for the local men like Tuck. Brother Rhys could have run rings around the both of them when it came to learning, yet he had never risen beyond schooling the novices, and to Tuck’s mind, St Mary’s had lost its holiest brother on the day that Rhys had died two years ago. So much so, that lately he was almost daily wondering how much longer he could stand being cooped up in here.

While he had been filling his mind with wondrous things, Tuck could accept that he was seeing nothing of the outside world. But once Rhys had died, and all of his extended learning had come to an abrupt halt, Tuck discovered that the monotony of the monastery had the ability to drive him mad. All the joy had gone out of the scriptorium with the arrival of Brother Eustace from Normandy eighteen months ago, and as Tuck felt little Brother Simeon flinch beside him, he knew that Eustace was behind them with that damned whippy cane of his that he so liked using on the youngest brothers.

He’d only tried it once with Tuck, who even back then at seventeen, was only a handful of years younger than Eustace, even if he was far below him in status. Finding the cane being ripped out of his hands, snapped in two, and then looking up into Tuck’s furious eyes as this supposedly lesser brother towered glowering over him, had been enough. Not that Tuck had got away with such disobedience, but the banishing of Tuck to hard labour in the monastery’s fields had had quite the opposite effect on Tuck to that which was intended. Far from becoming cowed by the hard work, Tuck had set to with relish, enjoying every moment he could at being out in the fresh air, and listening to the spring calls of the birds in the trees, and the burgeoning growth in the fields. Being part of the outside world for whole days for the first time in his life had been a joyful revelation, as had the chance to talk to the more worldly lay brothers more at length, and having to return to the now stifling atmosphere of the scriptorium only made Tuck worse. So much so that before long he was outside on punishment again, and working with a willingness he found it impossible to summon up for what was designated as his proper work.

Go on, Tuck found himself thinking as Cedric droned on, put me on punishment again. Please! For the love of God, let me out of here! Because more and more, Tuck was becoming convinced that if God had a plan for him, then living the rest of his life like this wasn’t it.

As they all trooped back out of the church and across to the refectory, where some very stale bread and extremely weak small beer awaited to break the brothers’ fast, Tuck’s one and only true friend, Dafydd, sidled up to him and whispered,

Another mangled office!

I know, Tuck hissed back. How does he do it? How does he make such a mess of something he must have heard every day for decades? Didn’t I hear someone say he’d been a monk for thirty years now?

Dafydd had to wait until they had passed the lurking figure of Humbert before he replied, but when he did he shocked Tuck to the core.

Well I’ve had it, he declared. I’m making a run for it at the first chance I get!

Just in time, Tuck managed to stop himself from halting in his tracks and gawping at Dafydd, but had to ask, Where will you go?

It certainly wouldn’t be back home. Dafydd might not have come into the monastery quite as young as Tuck, but that meant that he had very clear memories of the father who had died, and the mother who had been forced into a loveless marriage with the Norman lord who coveted their little manor on the river Wye. There would be no welcome home for Dafydd there, especially as word had come last winter that his mother had also died.

I’m going to join the rebels, Dafydd declared, the sons of Deheubarth!

You’ll have to be prepared to fight, Tuck warned him, fearful that his idealistic friend was having visions of serving as some sort of priest to the rebels, and knowing that Prince Gruffydd would have no need for a holy man of Dafydd’s inexperience. It sounded like a grand adventure planned here in the safety of the monastery, but Tuck had enough common sense, and had listened to enough from the visitors he helped the infirmarer with, to know that the reality might be very different.

Oh I know that! Dafydd, replied with a grin. I’ve no intention of heading back into any place like this ever again! Come with me, Tuck! You’re a big lad – I bet they’d welcome you with open arms.

However, Tuck could only sigh. No, Daf’, that life’s not for me. I have this feeling that God has a purpose for me that he hasn’t shown me yet, but the life you’re heading for isn’t it, of that I’m sure.

By now they were inside the refectory, one of the few places where talking was openly permitted for a short while, and seeing Dafydd’s stubborn scowl, Tuck knew that he was going to have to explain in more detail.

Look, he said, drawing Dafydd aside once they had collected their simple breakfast, to a dark corner where they wouldn’t be noticed. If you go on the run, what are they going to say? What description are they going to give, eh? That they’re after a lad of medium height, light-brown hair and hazel eyes? That’s like half of Wales – or at least round here!

He gave Dafydd a little shake. Now look at me. I’ve topped six feet since I was in my mid teens, and that all by itself puts me a full head taller than the vast majority of men. And with jet-black hair and an olive complexion? Black hair with white skin, yes, that’s very Welsh, but not with my height it isn’t, either. I’ll stand out in a crowd like a great big, dark thistle in Brother Ioan’s herb garden! On your own you stand a chance, but not with me with you.

Dafydd’s face fell, and Tuck knew that he was bitterly disappointed that his friend wouldn’t be coming with him.

You should go, Tuck said kindly. You’re as stifled in here as I am. Don’t worry, I’ll find my own way.

But throughout the day, Tuck went about his tasks mindlessly while his thoughts were far away. He remembered Dafydd being brought to the monastery ten years ago, not only because the boy had sobbed his heart out for the mother who had been in hysterics herself at their being parted, but because of the questions it had raised in his own mind about himself.

Why did my mother hate me so much as to give me away when I was so little that I can’t even remember her face? What did I do so wrong? he recalled his younger self asking Brother Rhys, and the kindly Rhys answering,

It wasn’t you, Tuck. A wicked man came and got you on her, see? And her family wouldn’t have you around. You were too much of a reminder.

That hadn’t been much consolation even back then, but it had been some years later, when Tuck was thirteen and already head and shoulders taller than the other boys, and a clue of a very different kind had come. A fine Norman lord had come to the priory to stay for that night, on his way to visiting the de Braoses at their other castle aside from Abergavenny over at Brecon. He and his entourage had clattered in through the gateway just as the boys had been released from their afternoon classes, and were dispersing to their other chores. Peering down at the boys from off his fine white horse, Tuck had heard him say,

"Who’s that boy? Some lord’s get, for sure! No mistaking the Norman turn of his features! Whose is he?"

And the prior of the time answering, We have no idea, my lord. He was brought to us by the servant of a noble Welsh family from north of here. They said he was here to provide repentance for his father’s sins.

The Norman lord had thrown back his head and guffawed nastily at that. "Noble Welsh family? Pfhaa! No such thing! And his mother may have been some Welsh bitch with pretensions of grandeur, but his sire was pure Norman, I’d wager my best hound on that! He wasn’t the one who thought his sins needed a squalling brat to provide repentance for, I’ll be bound – that’d be her family. Either her husband wasn’t best pleased at his overlord warming his wife’s bed before him, or the father had plans to marry her off to another of those By-Our-Lady heathen curs, and the man wasn’t willing to take her with a whelp already at her heels. Ha-ha-ha!"

Tuck’s height, even back then, had given him a clear view over the other novices’ heads of the brothers all wincing at the lord’s coarseness, and lack of tact at referring to one of their own kind as a ‘heathen cur’. Everyone here knew that Christianity had lingered on in Wales after the Romans had gone; and that meanwhile England had slipped back into worshipping heathen gods for centuries, before blessed St Augustine had been sent direct from Rome five hundred years ago to reconvert them. For weren’t there several sacred little churches around here that could date their foundation back to long before St Bede, of reverent memory, had written his history of Christianity? Those ancient monks had stood up to Augustine once he got as far as the border, that every novice also knew from the writing of the great Bede, needing no help back then from that earlier pompous abbot from across the sea any more than the local brothers did now, and they resented the slurs against them by Norman lords. But Tuck had also caught many of the brothers looking at him, then at the lord, and then back again, as if seeing something connecting them. Certainly enough that he had taken himself off to the priory fishponds to stare at his reflection in the calm waters, needing to see for himself what it could be.

And what he had seen on that day hadn’t pleased him. Oh yes, there was something very similar about his boyish features to that pompous lord’s. The colouring was there for a start off. That olive skin which stayed dark, even in dull, wet Welsh winters, and was unknown of locally, especially topped by a mop of dark tight curls, for Tuck had been too young back then to be tonsured, being only just on the cusp of becoming a novice. But there had been something else. The set of the jaw-line and the eyebrows too, and they made Tuck wonder whether he had just been given a horrible glimpse of his unknown father – for if not this man, then surely it had been one of his family who had done the deed, and by then Tuck was old enough to have heard of rape and what it meant.

"I’m not Norman, I’m not, he had hissed to his reflection. I’m Welsh! Whoever you were, Father, I disown you. I’m of my mother’s people! I’m Cymry!"

And now several years later, Tuck knew that that had been the day when he’d first felt as though he was neither fish nor fowl. He wouldn’t be accepted out with the ordinary Welsh lads in the farms and fields, but he would never be welcomed into the aristocratic Norman world either. But somewhat worse, something in that mongrel blood which ran through his veins wouldn’t let him become subservient, no matter how hard he tried, and Tuck had tried so very hard to be obedient and humble to no avail. At some point a strain of the wild Celt would rise up in him whenever he saw an injustice – please God it wasn’t Norman arrogance, he often prayed – and at that point, even if he could manage to keep quiet, it was as if his thoughts were written all over his face.

Two nights later, Dafydd went on the run. It had been a night of gusting winds which rattled the priory’s wooden window shutters and doors, creating enough of a racket that the sound of someone slipping out of the dormitory wouldn’t be noticed. Not that Tuck thought Dafydd had lingered long enough to see if anyone had raised the alarm. He’d spotted that his friend had rolled something up and stuffed it under his blanket to give the form of a sleeping figure in the dim light, for the brothers only had one meagre candle in a lantern at the end of the dormitory to light their way down to Matins in the depths of the night. Stumbling down the steps to the church, all of them half asleep and chilled to the bone by the icy drafts whistling through the buildings, everyone had been too busy pulling their own robes tighter around them to look about, much less take notice of a bed back at the far end of the dormitory. The placing of Tuck and Dafydd up the farthest end from the door – because they hadn’t been trusted not to creep out in the night and get up to mischief – became the very thing which allowed Dafydd’s escape to go unnoticed. And even Tuck hadn’t seen or heard him leave, being merely the only one to notice that he had gone by Matins.

Come the morning, Sub-prior Humbert was vicious in his condemnation of Tuck and the half dozen other brothers who slept at the far end, yet all of them could swear on the Holy Bible that they had seen and heard nothing. And for that Tuck was grateful. His friend had no doubt gone as soon as everyone was asleep after Compline, and it had only been when he’d officially been missed at Lauds, some nine hours later as it fell at this time of year, that the alarm had been raised.

By now, Dafydd was hopefully far away from here, since all he’d had to do was keep the sunrise at his back all the way, and he would be deep within the Welsh princes’ territories soon enough, even if it wasn’t necessarily the specific prince he hoped to serve. Yet Eustace and Humbert had found the metaphorical stick they had long been looking for to beat Tuck with. He must have known, they told Prior Augustine over and over again. He was lying, they said. And yet Augustine had looked into Tuck’s eyes as he had placed his hand reverently on the great jewel-covered Bible, which was kept chained to its lectern up by the high altar, and knew that Tuck was telling the truth when he said that he had not known when Dafydd had left. What Augustine was less sure of was whether Tuck had know that Dafydd had had such a thing in mind, for Tuck would not openly lie, but had been very careful to say only that he had known that Dafydd had been desperately unhappy.

When the abrasive Humbert and Eustace had eventually been dismissed from Augustine’s office after the umpteenth attempt to get Tuck punished harshly, he regarded Tuck with dismay.

What am I going to do with you, Tuck? he asked. "Your faith isn’t in doubt. Indeed I suspect that you have more devotion to God than many of the senior monks here. But you do not fit into the monastic life. That has become very clear over these past few years, and it’s not getting any better as you grow older – in fact, I think you are getting worse!

"This life doesn’t provide enough of a challenge for you. Having come here as a child, you have no memories of the temptations which life beyond the cloister might bring for you. So unlike Brother Ignatius, for instance, you have no longings of the flesh to torment you, and which you can set yourself to overcome. And may God forgive me for saying so, but Brother Eustace is far from the scholar Brother Rhys was, and he knows you can run rings around him at every point when it comes to learning. Nor does he like the fact that the youngest novices remember your lessons more than his – even if it’s merely because you’re actually repeating Brother Rhys’ lessons rather than your own. The only thing you are useless at is illuminating manuscripts, and we don’t have enough valuable parchment for me to be setting you to spoiling sheet after sheet just to be able to improve!

"So what to do with you, eh? ...Do you think you could manage outside in the world? Could you bring yourself to talk with ordinary people who do not have your learning? Because I am inclined to send you away from here for everyone’s sake, including yours. Eustace and Humbert will never settle while you are here – they’ve made that clear by their actions if not their words over this incident – and they fear you incite rebellion into the novices. I don’t think that’s true, necessarily, but your restless spirit is certainly a distraction.

Therefore I have a mind to send you to help Brother Cadfan who looks after our church at Llanbedr, just below St Issui’s at Patricio, up in the mountains. Augustine shook his head wearily. No Norman-born monk wants to go there – not stuck up in that tiny valley with only the local Welsh for company. They feel too threatened. Here Tuck felt the prior might well have been silently including himself, for Augustine never ventured into the valleys either. "So I have no choice but to have Cadfan up there, who is another of mixed breeding like yourself. And have someone we must, for there are pilgrims a plenty who wish to go to St Issui’s, even if they are not highborn folk.

"Jesu, help me, but I’m not sure if even the Pope himself knows who this saintly Welshman is, so none of my own kin have any reverence for him, much less wish to tend his shrine which