Autumn, 1363 AD, Morning, Britain
Brother Lawrence's heightened awareness was following the path of a vein on the surface of a withered leaf directly in his line of sight as he knelt silently before the two cowled brothers.
He awaited the Lord's providence for his future ... life or death.
With a wry twist on his mouth, Brother Thomas extended a kitchen-calloused hand toward the kneeling figure before him.
"There will be no more slaying my friend," Thomas intoned sadly. "Come, let us break fast together. There is much to talk about."
Lawrence lifted his eyes to the figures standing above him and took in the moist sheen that glazed Thomas' eyes and the stern set to Silas's jaw before reaching out and accepting Thomas' outstretched hand. Rising to his feet, he followed the brothers back toward the withered cabin, carefully leaving the book-laden satchel concealed in the forest behind.
A lump - born of grief, exhaustion, and fear - formed in Lawrence's throat and prevented him from speaking until long after the trio had reached the porch of the cabin. Brothers Thomas and Silas set about the task of arranging a makeshift eating area and pulling provisions from their packs.
It was long into their salted pork and stale biscuits before Brother Silas lifted his broad frame from the dirt and broke the silence.
"Before we begin brother," he said in a deep, gruff voice that had always reminded Lawrence of what a sea captain must sound like, "I must ask for your own explanation for being here and how you ..."
"Friend," interrupted Thomas, "is now really the time for suspicion and alibis?"
"Can anyone be trusted, fully, after what we've just ..." retorted Silas with some temper rising in his voice.
"Brothers," intervened Lawrence, hurriedly, lifting his hands in a placating gesture, "It would be well for each of us to share our stories, in turn, and I would be only too happy to begin."
With that, Lawrence gave a candid description of how he was alerted to the treachery that had unfolded days earlier, as well as his eyewitness account of "Brother" Rugio's murder of Justin. He concluded with an account of his wounds and flight to the cabin, but intentionally made no mention of the Scriptorium fire or existence of the hidden books.
Silence returned to the three as Thomas nodded his head thoughtfully and Silas's glare bore into the cracked soil beneath them.
"I believe you brother," interjected Thomas into the silence, his voice distant and sad. "My escape wasn't nearly as eventful as yours, nor as fraught with hardship.
With that, he told the tale that Lawrence had previously presumed. His routine as a cook had stirred Thomas earlier than most of the other brothers that morning and it was within the confines of the kitchen that he had heard the explosion resulting from Lawrence's escape. Running into the common eating place, he found two cowled forms; face down, smoldering and unrecognizable. He had deduced that they could only have been the forms of Brothers John and Paulus, who were scheduled to prepare the tables for the remaining monk's arrival from Lauds in an hour to break fast.
In fright, he assumed something was amiss and hid in the kitchen, stealing glances out of its solitary window every few moments until he noticed the smoke billowing from the Scriptorium. Escaping out the side door of the common hall, Thomas made for the woods opposite the burning building, nearly colliding with the solid form of Brother Silas as he breached the timbers.
"Follow me," was all Silas had said to him, and he had done so; quietly following the line of the forest, ducking beneath the Abbey's entrance gate and entering into the continuing forest which backed the Scriptorium. It was several hours before Silas allowed them to rest and Thomas received an explanation from his taciturn brother as to what was happening and where they were going.
Silas grunted his assent that this was, more or less, what had happened that morning before returning to silence. The brothers knew better than to rush their gruff companion and it was a full five minutes before he shared his story.
"I killed four men that morning," he said without emotion. "Rugio's band must not have been the only killing team. They must have assigned one group per wing. As you know, my room is the last in the west hall, as yours is in the east, Lawrence."
"So, your neighbor Joachim then is ..."
"Probably," replied Silas, "unless he chose to trim the border hedge extremely early in the morning."
He paused before continuing.
"I was not as blessed as you were to know the approach of my assassins, beforehand. A secret that I've never told anyone and ..." he eyed the two of them, grimly, "a secret I expect you to keep until the grave is that I have practiced sleeping shielded in for years. I learned it on my own and promised myself to never teach it to another."
"So don't ask," he said as he eyed each of them in turn.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Silas ran his hand through his beard before continuing. "Of course it wasn't strong enough to save my life, alone. But, it gave me just enough warning to wake me and cause me to instinctively increase the flow within me. I still don't know who the foolish bastard was, but he didn't expect to be resisted by a sleeping man ... and I burned him to the bone before he knew what had happened. His lackeys within the room fared no better when I hurled a shield toward them, breaking their necks against the wall."
Turning his head back toward the woods he concluded, "I didn't stay to find out who I had killed."
With that, the brooding silence returned. Lawrence's mind was too frayed at the moment to sift each of the men's stories for inconsistencies. Even if he could have done so, he surmised that his conscience would never have allowed him to. He reflected briefly that he had committed not only the books, but his very life into Jesu's providence and thus far, it would seem that trust was the only option.
?
During the conversation thus far, it had taken no small measure of discipline for Lawrence to not keep looking back in the direction of the books within the forest. As the other two monks each remained preoccupied with their own thoughts, a special quandary presented itself to Lawrence as he poured over his options silently. He had entrusted these men with his life and told them his story, up to a point. Dare he, now, trust them fully? What other option did he really have? He couldn't leave a leather satchel with perishable books out in the elements forever; certainly not tomes of such inestimable value.
For a moment, he considered the notion of leaving the brothers behind under a ruse and coming back for the precious anthologies at a later time. But, under what pretense? As he had already concluded, eluding them physically wasn't an option and no tale that his heart would allow him to tell would be convincing enough.
In the end, he concluded that if God had shown his faithfulness, thus far, then the safety of the anthologies were in His hands, not Lawrence's.
Breaking the silence brought on by Silas's startling confession; Lawrence unburdened his heart and revealed what he had done at the Scriptorium, days earlier, to brothers Thomas and Silas. No words of condemnation came from their lips as, together, the three of them walked the short distance into the forest and retrieved the precious anthologies from behind the tree where Lawrence had hastily secured them.
"Thank you, Lawrence," said Thomas after they had returned to the cabin. "You needn't have done that."
Silas only grunted and continued staring at the ground.
"Brothers," said Lawrence after a thoughtful pause. "I meant what I said when I called out to you from my concealment. My life bound up in the will of the Almighty. You have spared my life and I have no choice but to trust that your intentions are good."
He reached for the water skin that the three had been passing and continued. "Our treasure will either preserve or perish at our Lord's pleasure. In truth, I am weary of carrying the burden alone."
He paused and added with a slight smile, "literally."
Thomas chuckled, catching the inference and patted Lawrence on the shoulder. But, his demeanor quickly returned to its somber cast.
"What then, brothers?" he said, thoughtfully. "An immeasurable task has been set before us. What shall now become of us and our precious charge?"
"We must go back."
Both Lawrence and Thomas turned to Silas in stunned disbelief.
"What did you say?" asked Lawrence, thinking he had heard incorrectly.
Silas's gruff voice seemed to allow for no argument. "We must go back!
Don't you see?" he said passionately. "The secret of is not safe from the world through the hiding of a few books. Even though the anthologies contain mysteries that mankind has not even conceived of, those mysteries still exist in the minds of the murderers we've left behind at the Abbey! As long as they live on, lives on!"
"Are you suggesting that we return and kill those responsible?" retorted Thomas, his voice rising. "Have you gone mad?"
Lawrence waited for the ill-tempered Silas to turn on the other man at this rebuke. But he was surprised when Silas's tone, instead, softened.
"Here me out friends ... both of you," he said, looking at each of them in turn. "The anthologies contain what all of the Order knows by rote. But, as you well know, they also contain script from the ancient language unknown to all but a few in antiquity."
Silas stood to his feet and paced as he continued. "What is common knowledge to us all, if released to the world, would damage the future irreparably. But, what is written in the ancient tongue supersedes all that you've ever seen or been taught."
Thomas interrupted, shaking his head. "Wait, Silas. The ancient tongue is dead to us. We have always been told so. It is unreadable and always has been since the death of the founders of our Order."
"That is true," continued Silas, "but ... not all of the founders are dead."
Lawrence joined Silas on his feet at this revelation. The air had gone still. "Friend, what are you saying? Our order is over five hundred years old. Even if the fathers had lived to be one hundred, their secrets would have died with them.
Silas offered up a grim smile and shook his head, slowly. "Have you not even noticed?"
"Noticed what?" answered Thomas passionately, finally joining the standing brothers.
"For middle-aged men, both your health and your appearance show remarkable preservation."
Silas let the phrase hang in the air as the others only looked back at him in confusion.
"To make this simple," continued Silas, "I will only say that not all of the founders and fathers have died. Extensive use of has preserved them; as it has you, though you are too young to have fully noticed it yet. In truth, brothers, three of the original fathers remain among us and ..." he ground his teeth before continuing; "one of them has gone rogue!"
"Rugio," said Lawrence, matter-of-factly. "You're saying that Rugio is over four hundred years old?"
"Are you dehydrated, friend?" said Thomas with a nervous laugh. "Let me get this straight," he said as he pinched his nose, "Rugio is one of the original fathers of St. Bartholomew? He is more than a few centuries old, he speaks the ancient language, he has just decimated the Order that he, purportedly, had created?"
He shook his head incredulously. "What other revelations do you have for us?"
Lawrence interjected, with furrowed brow, "Brother, how could you know all of this?"
Looking straight at his fellow monks, Silas replied, "Because I am the third father."
Denying the stunned men time to reply to this unbelievable revelation, Silas continued. "Just listen. We must return the anthologies to St. Bartholomew and hide them under Rugio and his lackeys' very noses.
"And," he concluded with a menacing stare at each of them, "we must hunt down and destroy every last traitor. But, even if some manage to escape ..." Silas trailed off as his violent stare grew strangely dull.
"What, Silas?" whispered Lawrence.
Silas looked into his eyes and answered "I must kill my brother."
