Father Brandt opened the door, expecting to find an anxious peasant come to fetch him to the bedside of a dying man or woman. He was rarely bothered so late for anything else.
Thus he was surprised and momentarily frightened to see Cenwulf standing on the step. Was it Edris? or his little nephew Baldwin?
“Brandt!” Cenwulf sobbed and threw himself against him. “Help me! I can’t go home.”
He reeked of wine. This was not characteristic of him, but it had happened often enough over the years for Brandt to know what Cenwulf could be when he had been drinking.
“I hope it is Father tonight,” Brandt grumbled. “It is very late for a brother.”
“I can’t go home,” he repeated.
“Only go up the road and turn right.”
“I can’t. I need your help.”
“Come inside then,” Brandt sighed.
Cenwulf slipped through the door and went stumbling across the floor, his head in his hands.
“What is it?” Brandt asked him.
“I can’t see her tonight.”
“I would be ashamed to go to her in thy condition,” Brandt said. “But she will worry if she wakes alone.”
“I can’t, Brandt,” he moaned. “Let me stay with you tonight, I beg you. Don’t you know what night it is?”
“Wednesday.”
“No! The sixteenth!”
“Even the seventeenth now. It is very late.”
“The night of the sixteenth, then. Brandt! It is our wedding day!”
“With Colburga.”
“Of course with Colburga! I married Edris in December, on the darkest day of the year.”
“Even so, that all the days to follow be brighter.”
“No!”
“What, no?”
“Brighter, brighter… all the days are dark – dark from dawn to dusk, and dark all throught the night.”
“My brother,” Brandt sighed.
“Brandt, tell me something,” he begged. “You told me that Colburga wanted me to marry again. You told me that she didn’t want me to live too long alone. And you told me you meant to tell me so, but you didn’t think it was yet too long. Now tell me – how long was too long? When did you mean to tell me?”
“I had not chosen a time,” Brandt said. “I only watched thee to see.”
“Do you know what I think? Do you know what I think is too long? I think you would not have lived long enough to see!”
“Thou art not thyself tonight.”
“I am myself! Tonight, tonight only. I shall not pretend. Brandt, you must help me, I beg you, as her brother. Let me stay here.”
“As her brother I certainly shall not. As Father, I may, but thou must ask me for the help a priest may give.”
“I don’t need the sort of help a priest may give, Brandt. Unless not loving one’s wife is a sin?”
“Oh, Cenwulf,” Brandt sighed, gravely disappointed. “Hast not the merest fondness for the girl? She is a dear woman, and would love thee well, if she dared.”
“I don’t know… fondness… I don’t know,” he muttered. “It’s nothing like… nothing like that. You don’t know how it can be, Brandt. Sometimes I hate her! Sometimes I want to ask the Lord why He took my Colburga, and let Edris live, whom nobody loved!”
“Cenwulf!” Brandt thundered, interrupting him. “Colburga loved her dearly. For that alone…!” He shook his head. “On the morrow, if thou canst remember the half of what thou sayest to me tonight, thou wilt be struck dead with shame, I think.”
Cenwulf hung his head.
“I must attribute it to the wine, else I should not recognize thee. Where hast thou been and with whom this night?”
“I have been at Nothelm with Leofric and Egelric,” he mumbled.
“Ach! Even so! A bachelor who hates all women, and a bigamist who beats his wives! I hope thou hast not dishonored my sister or my cousin by speaking of them with those two sinners, else, were I a man who might bear arms…”
“I did not speak of them.”
“That is good. Now, as Colburga’s brother and as a priest, I shall give thee two choices this night. I recommend the first, which is even this: go back to thy wife, and lie down beside her, and ask the Lord why He gave this lovely, loving, and lovable woman to thee, who art so unworthy of her. And if thou art even too drunk to get there, or art too ashamed to face her, then I shall offer thee a second choice, which is even this: stay here tonight, and read that.” Brandt took a book from the table and handed it to him.
“What is this?” Cenwulf asked, looking blearily at the cover.
“The City of God,” Brandt said as Cenwulf sat at the table with the book.
“Augustine again,” Cenwulf muttered.
“It should make thee sober, if more ashamed. As for me, I go back to bed. Thou art not the only sinner that has need of the old Father Brandt.”
Brandt turned away from him as he began to read and went to stretch out on his bed. He knew how tedious Cenwulf found Saint Augustine and did not think he would last long, but if even he were stubborn enough to sit up all night reading it, at least it might do him some good.
But he did not last long. Before Brandt had quite fallen back to sleep, he heard the book close and the sound of the chair legs dragging across the floor.
“It is a salutary medicine, whether taken in small or large doses,” Brandt said almost to himself.
“I shall go back to her,” Cenwulf said softly. “And I shall apologize to her, though she will not know why.”
“See that she never learns,” Brandt warned him.
Chapters
And I thought he was beginning to love her. Poor Edris.