Glenn Cooper - Secret of the Seventh Son

“And why is that?”

“I don’t know, Will! Orders!”

“And what am I supposed to do now?”

She was mournfully apologetic, the official face of something she didn’t understand.

“Nothing. They want you to stand down and do nothing. As far as you’re concerned, it’s over.”

W hen the baby was born, Mary refused to name it. She did not feel it was hers. Octavus had crudely placed it inside her and she could only watch her body grow heavy as its time neared and endure the pain of its birth just as she had endured the act of its procreation.

She suckled it because her breasts were full and she was required to do so, but would not look at its indifferent lips as it fed nor stroke its hair the way most mothers did when an infant was sucking at her teat.

After her violation, she was moved from the Sister’s Dormitory to the Hospicium. There, she was segregated from the prying eyes and gossip of the novices and sisters and would gestate in the relative anonymity of the guesthouse, where visitors to the abbey were unaware of her shame. She was well-fed and permitted to take walks and work in a vegetable garden until the fullness of her term made her waddle and puff. However, all who knew her were saddened by the change in her disposition, the loss of her sparkle and humor, the dullness that prevailed. Even Prioress Magdalena secretly lamented the alterations to her temperament and the loss of youthful color from her formerly ruddy cheeks. The lass could never be admitted to the order now. How could she? Nor could she return to her village on the far side of the island-her kin would have nothing to do with her, a debased woman. She was in limbo, like an unbaptized child, neither evil nor graced.

When the baby was born and they all saw its bright ginger hair, its milky skin, and its apathetic countenance, the abbot and Paulinus deduced that Mary was a vessel, perhaps a divine one, who was owed nurturing and protection in much the same way the way the child had to be nurtured and protected.

This was no virgin birth, but the mother’s name was Mary and the child was special.

A week after the baby was born, Magdalena visited Mary and found her lying in bed, staring vacantly into the air. The baby was still, in its cradle on the floor.

“Well, have you a name for him yet?” the prioress asked.

“No, Sister.”

“Do you intend to name the child?”

“I do not know,” she answered listlessly.

“Every child must have a name,” Magdalena declared sternly. “I shall name it then. He will be Primus, the first child of Octavus.”

Primus was now in his fourth year. Lost in his own world, he wandered the Hospicium and its environs, pale as cream, never straying far, never interested in objects or people. Like Octavus, he was mute and expressionless, with small green eyes. Every so often Paulinus would come, take him by the hand and lead him to the Scriptorium, where they would descend the stairs to his father’s chamber. Paulinus would watch them as he might study heavenly bodies, looking for signs, but they were indifferent to one another. Octavus would continue to furiously write, the boy would move dreamily around the room, not bumping into anything but not seeing either. The quills did not interest him, nor the ink, the parchment, and the scribbles that emanated from Octavus’s hand.

Paulinus would report back to Josephus, “The boy has shown no inclinations,” and the two old men would shrug at each other and shuffle off for prayer.

It was a crisp autumn afternoon with a snap to the air. The waning sun was the color of marigold petals. Josephus was gingerly walking the abbey grounds, deep in meditation, silently praying for God’s love and salvation.

Salvation was much on his mind. For weeks he had noticed that his urine first turned brown and now cherry red and his hearty appetite had vanished. His skin was becoming slack and tawny and the whites of his eyes were muddy. When he rose from kneeling prayer he felt like he was floating on waves and had to hold on for balance. He did not need to consult with the barber surgeon nor Paulinus. He knew he was dying.

Oswyn never saw the completion of the abbey reconstruction, nor would he, he reckoned, but the church, the Scriptorium, and the Chapter House were done and work was progressing on the dormitories. But more important, Octavus’s library was on his mind. He could never truly fathom its purpose and he’d stopped trying to make sense of it. He simply knew these things:

It existed.

It was divine.

One day Christ would reveal its purpose.

It must be protected.

It must be allowed to grow.

Yet, as he watched the blood drain slowly from him with every passage of his water, he feared for the mission. Who would guard and defend his library when he was gone?

In the distance he saw Primus sitting in the dirt of the guest vegetable garden, a barren, harvested plot beside the Hospicium. The boy was alone, which was not unusual since his mother was inattentive. He had not seen him for a while and was now curious enough to spy on him.

The boy was nearly the age of Octavus when Josephus first took him in, and the resemblance was uncanny. The same reddish hair, the same bloodless complexion, the same frail body.

When Josephus was thirty paces away he stopped in his tracks and felt his heart race and his head swim. If he had not taken to using a walking staff he might have stumbled. The boy had a stick and was holding it in his hand. Then, before Josephus’s eyes, he began using it to scrape the dirt in large swirling motions.

He was writing, Josephus was certain of it.

Josephus struggled to get through None prayers. After the congregation dispersed, he tapped three people on the shoulder and pulled them to a corner of the nave. There, he huddled with Paulinus, Magdalena, and Jose, who had been included in his inner circle ever since the young monk discovered the rape. Josephus had never regretted his decision to open up to the Iberian, who was calm and wise and discreet to a fault. And the abbot, the prioress, and the astronomer, who all were growing old, appreciated Jose’s strength and vigor.

“The boy has begun to write,” Josephus whispered. Even at a whisper, his voice echoed in the cavernous nave. They crossed themselves. “Jose, bring the boy to Octavus’s chamber.”

They sat the boy on the floor next to his father. Octavus took no notice of him nor any of the others who had invaded his sanctum. Magdalena had shunned Octavus since the atrocity, and even with the passage of time she recoiled at his sight. She no longer allowed her girls to tend him-those tasks were now delegated to young male novices. She kept as far away from his writing table as she could, half worried he might spring up and violate her too.

Jose placed a large sheet of vellum before Primus and surrounded it with a semicircle of candles.

“Give him a dipped quill,” Paulinus rasped.

Jose dangled a quill in front of the boy as one might tempt a cat to pounce upon a feather. A drop of ink fell and splashed the page.

The boy suddenly reached out, grabbed the quill with his tiny right fist and put the tip onto the page.

He moved his hand in circles. The quill loudly scraped the parchment.

The letters were large and clumsy but clear enough to decipher.

V-a-a-s-c-o

“Vaasco,” Paulinus said when the last letter was written.

S-u-a-r-i-z

“Vaasco Suariz,” Jose intoned. “Portuguese nombre. ”

Then numbers also sprang childlike from the juvenile hand.

8 6 800 Mors

“The eighth day of Junius, 800,” Paulinus said.

Josephus said, “Please, Jose, check Octavus’s current page. What year is he recording?”