Purple Monster

Large gold crosses and stain glass saints were still in evidence but no large crucifixtion effigies, for that she was emmensly grateful. Continual badly redured reminders of what had happened hurt her inside in away she knew to be a weakness.

Her top lip became prickled with moisture – fever was starting and even her immune system had succumed. She wanted food and rest. After the meal she went and settled down in her cell, no one argued no one made her go to afternoon vespers but she could not sleep. Her mind kept turning to the past, to all those who had died in the name of religon and she had to fight the urg to destroy the monastry herself. She kept hoping Matthew would come and see her but he didn’t of course he wouldn’t be excuessed from his chores. She felt guilty and the hunger was gnawing at her, she needed more food – they had bought her lunch to the room and she had gulped the grey gellatonous soup down as if it had been the tastest thing ever – in trueth it was bland with a side order of luke warm.

She sat and read some of the set texts sighing over how hard the medieval text actually was to read – sure it all looked pretty but the monastry had some really old books and gaps between words was still a relatively new thing. They’d got it in their heads that the harder you had to work to decipher the message on the page the closer to gods true message you got. She was glade that chanting and things had come in and to be quiet honest grammer was needed to read the writings out loud.

The scroll work around the edge of the page was bueatiful and she had done her own versions of it in the past but really as an information conveying document it was pretty useless and she had to read it. The older monks would be asking her about it – it was part of her education and it was quiet frankly once she managed to work out what a sentence said – a load of drivel.

A sense of wasted time begain to kreep in on her. She was just considering trying to remember her way back to the kitchens for some attmepted food theift when Matthew and Henry appeared. Henry looked slightly tense and like he was going to burst she hoped he wasnt still planning on hitting poor Matthew for her sake.

‘A messangers come from London!’ he exclaimed his green eyes flaring breifly, ‘we’re off the hook!’ she stared at the red headed boy berwildered as to what he was talking about.

‘Only maybe Henry and they wont let you just be a normal merchant or Lord anyway – you know that.’ Matthew said solomely.

‘Yes yes of course but this time I’m sure about it, I just hope…’ he trailed off remembering he wasn’t on his own. ‘I hope she doesn’t miscarry a boy like my aunt did.’ there was a resingned sadness in his voice and she found herself staring at him. ‘You know she’s technically my aunt too?’ he said suddenly his mouth twisting in distate.

She shock her head – she didn’t really have a clue what he was talking about.

‘Jane Seymore – the Queen? She was married to my uncle. The King got rid of him at the same time as my aunt.’ he said the words with venom. And she wondered what it must be like knowing you father who wants you as king was responsible for the destruction of you mothers social status, and the deaths of her siblings. Her gut cramped – she thought that was a fair enough assessment.

‘Anyway if its a boy we’ll be off the hook! Becuase it wont be a bastard and there wont be any hohar over him being king – I’m hoping for a boy.’ He said enthatically. She nodded her head vaccantly – a slight headache was building.

She tugged Matthews sleeve, ‘I know this will sound odd but is there anyway of getting more food than the meals round here – I was in the woods living rough for a while and my system isn’t quiet back together again. I’m so hungry.’ Her stomache growled and the two boys grinned at each other.

‘Of course there is! But erm… its not really official shall we say.’ Carey grinned and so did MAtthew she raised her eyebrow at them.

‘Do you feel well enough to come with us?’ Henry asked but Matthew shock his head and refused to listen to her protests, ‘there will be other times you can come and see – you need to rest – I can see your sick and Henry shouldn’t have asked!’

They left her and headed out to get food from their mysterious secret place – she stared listlesly out of the window the sky as always these days was grey – dampness permeated the air. she wondered how long before blight on food crops would be starving the emrald isle. Damp mild conditions bred funguses that killed off crops. She shuddred to think of these poeple starving – they were eratic enough as it was – probably the religon that did it.

A falcon shriek peirced the air and she wrapped her blanket around herself. The sound seemed to echo off the stone, she felt colder and older than she had for a long time.

They returned with cold meats, dried wrinkled fruits and flaggons of ale, wine adn mead, she googled at the cheeses and fruit cake, there was a pie and one large cottage loaf of bread. ‘Where on earth?’ the monastry did not go in for fancy foods so pies and the like were out as was fruit cake. And there was no way they would have gotten away with taking this amount of stuff from the kitchen ladders.

‘There’s a lovely widow in the village – she likes to see growing boys well fed!’ they grinned cheekily and she grinned back the smell of the bred was making her stomache growl. She sat down to devour it with one of the cremer cheeses. It was remanicent of the white rinded Cheeses she’d had in France except it didn’t stink.

It also tasted perceptably different, ‘goats cheese?’ she asked.

‘Nah sheep, thats what half the arguments have been about you know – dam sheep.’ She looked at Carey slightly suprised.

He scratched the back of his head with embarrassement, ‘sorry but its part of my education – sort of policy and stuff I think the idea is it’ll make me a better king or something.’ She nodded but was perplexed as to who sheep could be cuasing that much of a problem.

‘Whats wrong with sheep?’ she asked ripping off another huge lump of crusty bread – it was still warm, normally she didn’t go for things like bread and pulses her system seemed to prefer meat and leaf salads with maybe some sort of sort fruit type thing but the hunger was gnawring at her.

‘Its all abit silly really especially with whats happened to the monastrys – but most people lived as famers growing their own food and giving a chunck of it or takings from selling it to the landlord who actually owned their land but sheep have become the thing – cloth trade of all things – its quiet rediculas – started with my grandfather really but anyway becuase of cloth prices in Europe sheep bring in lots of money for little invested and few employers. So… ‘

‘They tuffered all the farmers?’ she interupted.

He nodded and shrugged. ‘Seems a bit silly to me after all we will need to eat as well as cloth ourselves and I know alot of stuff comes from abroad or even straight from the sea but we need vegitables reguardless of what my old nan used to say!’ She smiled at that one – vegitables had been renigated as a poor food – as something that would make you sick by not being nutrisous enough. It was bizar.

She hacked off a chunk of salted beef – it was tough to chew but was hitting the spot. Matthew was glaring at her. ‘What?’ she said spraying food everywhere.

Henry laughed, ‘You’ve forgotten what day it is haven’t you?’ She smaked her forhead with her hand – of course they had really strict rules about what was to be eaten on what days – and to make it worse it was religon that had dictated the days.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered once she had swallowed the remainder – she wanted to chew alot more of the rough tough beef but Matthew seemed to be quiet conventional when it came to food.

‘Your lucky,’ he snarlled, ‘if you were seen by other you’d find yourself arrested – they are militant about it and they are getting more so’ Ah no she hadn’t realised that.

Chuckling Henry left them, she looked at Matthew ‘I am really sorry you know.’ she said when she noticed he was still glaring at her.

‘I wish you hadn’t come here,’ he said darkly. Startled she looked at him, he was ridged with tension and his eyes shone too brightly. ‘I’ve spent ages trying to be a good novice and then you show up.’

‘How do I affect you being a good novice?’ she asked beweildered.

‘You look at me in that way and I’m going to have to go to confession! I never have to confess much and I don’t know what to confess without getting you in trouble.’ He sat on his bed shaking from the intesnisty of what he was saying.

‘You must have looked at other girls?’ she stated. He blushed and she knew then he had struggeled highly with the concept of pure abstanance. ‘Have you slept with any?’ the blush rose higher, he would not meet her eyes, ‘Brother Barnabos said that it was a moment of weakness and I’d be fine as long as I stayed away from girls.’ He bit his lip, she nodded absently.

‘The Widow has duaghters?’ she asked suprising herself, he looked away from her sharply.

‘Its a dangerous time for Monks to have concubines,’ he muttered.

‘You could leave the order?’ she asked he laughed mirthlessly.

‘My family have disowned me I have no income and I would need the Abbots blessing to go to a village as their lay preacher and it couldn’t be here – I couldn’t take her… or you with me.’ he sounded miserable and confussed.

‘And even if I got her to come with me he said no.’

‘Why’d he do that,’ she asked. He didn’t answer and the conversations of the previous night crept up on her. She patted his arm and smiled sadly.

‘I’m sorry you know but I can’t pick my sex nor control your emotions.’ she wanted to stroke him but now the situation was vastly more complecated – did he actaully love the girl in the village and if not was she pregnant – his cagyness made him think she might well be. But weather he realised he had or not he had confessed to at least being attracted to her – of course she was female and trapped in a very enclosed space with him. She was also starting to feel weary with the infection.

‘You should eat some more,’ he said suddenly, ‘but we need to stash this lot and then I’ll keep watch whilst you eat more of that salt beef.’

She thanked him and they proceeded to hide the food in concealed crevices around the room, ‘erm… Matthew?’ she said.

‘Yes?’ he replied.

‘Do you get a cell for life or are there novice cells and Abbot cells and the like?’ he looked at her puzzeled.

‘These are novice cells of course they are the smallest… Oh! I see yes that means they will know about the crevices doesn’t it?’ he smiled quirkily at her. ‘I should think that some of the older ones even made some of the crevices! But don’t worry they can’t admit to them being there without incriminating themselfs!’ he was grinning a wide lovely grin now – she grinned back and started chewing her salt beef. She yawned but thought it was such a shame she was too tired to suduce him.

Posted: Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 @ 4:57 pm
Categories: Uncategorized.
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