Glenn Cooper - Secret of the Seventh Son

Oswyn was sitting at the study table, his head hovering over his Bible. Golden shafts of light shone through the glazed windows and struck the table in a perfect angle to make the holy book appear to be glowing fiery orange. Oswyn straightened himself enough to make eye contact with his prior. “Ah, Josephus. How are things at the abbey today?”

“They are well, Father.”

“And what progress on our church, Josephus? How is the second arch on the eastern wall?”

“The arch is nearing completion. However, Ubertus the stonecutter is absent today.”

“Is he not well?”

“No, his wife has begun her labor.”

“Ah, yes. I recall.” He waited for his prior to say something more, but Josephus remained silent. “You are concerned by this birth?”

“It is perhaps inauspicious.”

“The Lord will protect us, Prior Josephus. Of this, you can be assured.”

“Yes, Father. I was wondering, nevertheless, whether I should venture to the village.”

“Toward what end?” Oswyn asked sharply.

“In the event a minister is required,” Josephus said meekly.

“You know my views on leaving the cloisters. We are servants of Christ, Josephus, not servants of man.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Have the villagers sought us out?”

“No, Father.”

“Then I would discourage your involvement.” He pushed his bent body up from the chair. “Now, let us go to Sext and let us join with our brothers and sisters to praise the Lord.”

Vespers, the sunset Evening Office, was Josephus’s dearest of the day since the abbot allowed Sister Magdalena to play the psaltery as accompaniment to their prayers. Her long fingers plucked the lute’s ten strings, and the perfection of pitch and precision of cadence were testament, he was sure, to the magnificence of Christ Almighty.

After the service, the brothers and sisters filed out of the Sanctuary and made toward their respective dormitories, past the blocks of stone, rubble, and the scaffolding left for the day by the Italians. In his cell, Josephus tried to clear his mind for a period of contemplation but was distracted by small sounds in the distance. Was someone approaching the walls? Was news of the birth forthcoming? At any moment he half expected the guest bell to be rung.

Before he knew it, Compline was upon him and it was time to reconvene in the church for the last service of the day. Because of his preoccupations, his meditation had been unsuccessful, and for this transgression he prayed for forgiveness. When the last strains of the last chant were uttered, he watched the abbot carefully descending from the high altar and thought that Oswyn had never appeared older or more frail.

Josephus slept fitfully, roiled by disturbing dreams of bloodred comets and infants with glowing red eyes. In his dream, people were gathering in a village square, summoned by a bell ringer with one strong arm and one withered one. The bell ringer was distraught and sobbing, and then, in a start, Josephus awoke and realized the man was Oswyn.

Someone was thumping at his door.

“Yes?”

From the other side of the door he heard a young voice. “Prior Josephus, I am sorry to wake you.”

“Enter.”

It was Theodore, a novice who was charged this night with attending the gatehouse.

“Julianus, the son of Ubertus the stonecutter, has come. He pleads that you go with him to his father’s cottage. His mother is having a hard labor and may not survive.”

“The child has not yet been born?”

“No, Father.”

“What hour is it, my son?” Josephus swung his feet onto the floor and rubbed his eyes.

“The eleventh.”

“Then it will soon be the seventh day.”

The path to the village was rutted from the wheels of ox-carts, and in the moonless dark Josephus almost turned his ankles. He labored to keep up with the long sure strides of Julianus so he could more readily follow the lad’s hulking black shape and stay on the path. The cool light wind carried the sounds of chirping crickets and calling gulls. Ordinarily, Josephus would have relished this night music, but tonight he hardly noticed.

As they neared the first cottage of the stonecutters’ village, Josephus heard the bell ringing back at the abbey, the call for the Night Office.

Midnight.

Oswyn would be told of his foray, and Josephus was quite sure he would not be pleased.

Being the middle of the night, the village was eerily active. In the distance Josephus could see oil lamps glowing from open doors of tiny thatched cottages and torches moving up and down the lane, signs of people out and about. As he drew closer it was clear that the center of activity was Ubertus’s cottage. Villagers milled outside it, their torches casting fantastic elongated shadows. Three men were crowding the door, peering in, their backs forming a phalanx blocking the entrance. Josephus overheard feverish chattering in Italian and snippets of Latin prayer the stonecutters had overheard in the church and stolen like magpies.

“Make way, the Prior of Vectis is here,” Julianus declared, and the men withdrew, crossing themselves and bowing.

A scream erupted from inside, a woman in agony, a curdling horrible cry that almost pierced the flesh. Josephus felt his legs weaken and uttered, “Merciful God!” before forcing himself to cross the threshold.

The cottage was crowded with family and villagers, so packed that for Josephus to enter two had to leave to make room. Seated by the hearth was Ubertus, a man as hard as the limestone he cut, slumped, his head in his hands.

The stonecutter cried out, his voice thin from exhaustion, “Prior Josephus, thank God you have come. Please, pray for Santesa! Pray for us all!”

Santesa was lying in the best bed surrounded by women. She was on her side, her knees up against her bulging belly, her shift pulled high, exposing mottled thighs. Her face was the color of sugar beets, contorted and almost lacking humanity.

There was something animalistic about her, Josephus thought. Perhaps the Devil had already taken her for his own.

A plump woman he recognized as the wife of Marcus, the foreman of the cementarii, seemed to be in charge of the birthing. She was positioned at the foot of the bed, her head darting in and out from under Santesa’s shift, blathering in Italian and barking orders to Santesa. The woman’s hair was braided and bobbed to keep it out of her eyes, her hands and smock covered in pink, gelatinous material. Josephus noted that Santesa’s belly was glistening from reddish ointment and that the bloody foot of a crane was on the bed. Witchcraft. This, he could not condone.

The midwife turned to acknowledge the presence of the minister and simply said, “It is breeched.”

Josephus edged up behind her, and the midwife suddenly lifted the shift to let him see a tiny purple foot dangling from Santesa’s body.

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

The woman lowered the shift. “A boy.”

Josephus gulped, made the sign of the cross and fell to his knees.

“In nomine patre, et filii, et spiritus sancti…”

But as he prayed, he wished with all his might for a stillbirth.

On a raw November night, nine months earlier, a gale blew outside the stonecutter’s cottage. Ubertus stoked the fire for the last time and went from cot to cot checking on his offspring, two or three to a mattress except for Julianus, who was old enough for his own pallet of straw. Then he crawled into the master’s bed beside his wife. She was on the verge of sleep, drained after another long day of heavy toils.

Ubertus tugged the heavy woolen coverlet to his chin. He had carried the cloth with him from Umbria in a chest of cedarwood, and it served him well in these harsh climes. He felt Santesa’s warm body beside him and laid a hand on her softly heaving chest. The urge was there and his hardness would have to be satisfied. By God, he deserved some pleasure in this difficult, earthly world. He slid his hand down and pulled her legs apart.