“Oh,” I said, understanding all at once. “And he said ‘Can you not watch with me one hour?’ So that’s what you’re doing – watching with him for that hour – to make up for it.” I liked the idea, and the darkness of the chapel suddenly seemed inhabited and comforting.
“Oui, madame,” he agreed. “Very simple. We take it in turns to watch, and the Blessed Sacrament on the altar here is never left alone.”
“Isn’t it difficult, staying awake?” I asked curiously. “Or do you always watch at night?”
He nodded, a light breeze lifting the silky brown hair. The patch of his tonsure needed shaving; short bristly hairs covered it like moss.
“Each watcher chooses the time that suits him best. For me, that is two o’clock in the morning.” He glanced at me, hesitating, as though wondering how I would take what he was about to say.
“For me, in that moment…” He paused. “It’s as though time has stopped. All the humors of the body, all the blood and bile and vapors that make a man; it’s as though just at once all of them are working in perfect harmony.” He smiled. His teeth were slightly crooked, the only defect in his otherwise perfect appearance.
“Or as though they’ve stopped altogether. I often wonder whether that moment is the same as the moment of birth, or of death. I know that its timing is different for each man… or woman, I suppose,” he added, with a courteous nod to me.
“But just then, for that fraction of time, it seems as though all things are possible. You can look across the limitations of your own life, and see that they are really nothing. In that moment when time stops, it is as though you know you could undertake any venture, complete it and come back to yourself, to find the world unchanged, and everything just as you left it a moment before. And it’s as though…” He hesitated for a moment, carefully choosing words.
“As though, knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary.”
“But… do you actually do anything?” I asked. “Er, pray, I mean?”
“I? Well,” he said slowly, “I sit, and I look at Him.” A wide smile stretched the fine-drawn lips. “And He looks at me.”
Jamie was sitting up when I returned to the room, and essayed a short trip up and down the hall, leaning on my shoulder. But the effort left him pale and sweating, and he lay down without protest when I turned back the coverlet for him.
I offered him a little broth and milk, but he shook his head wearily. “I’ve no appetite, Sassenach. If I take anything, I think I shall be sick again.”
I didn’t press the matter, but took the broth away in silence.
At dinner I was more insistent, and succeeded in persuading him to try a few spoonsful of soup. He managed quite a bit of it, but didn’t manage to keep it down.
“I’m sorry, Sassenach,” he said, afterward. “I’m disgusting.”
“It doesn’t matter, Jamie, and you are not disgusting.” I set the basin outside the door and sat down beside him, smoothing back the tumbled hair from his brow.
“Don’t worry. It’s only that your stomach is still irritated from the seasickness. Perhaps I’ve pushed you too fast to eat. Let it rest and heal.”
He closed his eyes, sighing under my hand.
“I’ll be all right,” he said, without interest. “What did ye do today, Sassenach?”
He was obviously restless and uncomfortable, but eased a bit as I told him about my explorations of the day; the library, the chapel, the winepress, and finally, the herb garden, where I had at last met the famous Brother Ambrose.
“He’s amazing,” I said enthusiastically. “Oh, but I forgot, you’ve met him.” Brother Ambrose was tall – even taller than Jamie – and cadaverous, with the long, drooping face of a basset hound. And ten long, skinny fingers, every one of them bright green.
“He seems to be able to make anything grow,” I said. “He’s got all the normal herbs there, and a greenhouse so tiny that he can’t even stand up straight inside it, with things that shouldn’t grow at this season, or shouldn’t grow in this part of the world, or just shouldn’t grow. Not to mention the imported spices and drugs.”
The mention of drugs reminded me of the night before, and I glanced out the window. The winter twilight set in early, and it was already full dark outside, the lanterns of the monks who tended the stables and outdoor work bobbing to and fro as they passed on their rounds.
“It’s getting dark. Do you think you can sleep by yourself? Brother Ambrose has a few things that might help.”
His eyes were smudged with tiredness, but he shook his head.
“No, Sassenach. I dinna want anything. If I fall asleep… no, I think I’ll read for a bit.” Anselm had brought him a selection of philosophical and historical works from the library, and he stretched out a hand for a copy of Tacitus that lay on the table.
“You need sleep, Jamie,” I said gently, watching him. He opened the book before him, propped on the pillow, but continued to stare at the wall above it.
“I didna tell ye what I dreamed,” he said suddenly.
“You said you dreamed of being flogged.” I didn’t like the look on his face; already pale under the bruises, it was lightly sheened with dampness.
“That’s right. I could look up and see the ropes, cutting into my wrists. My hands had gone almost black, and the rope scraped bone when I moved. I had my face pressed against the post. Then I could feel the lead plummets at the ends of the lashes, cutting through the flesh of my shoulders.
“The lashes kept coming, long past when they should have stopped, and I realized that he didn’t mean to stop. The tips of the cords were biting out small chunks of my flesh. The blood… my blood was running down my sides and my back, soaking into my kilt. I was very cold.
“Then I looked up again, and I could see that the flesh had begun to fall away from my hands, and the bones of my fingers were scrabbling at the wood, leaving long raw scratches behind. The bones of my arms were bare, and only the ropes were holding them together. I think that’s when I began to scream.
“I could hear a strange rattling noise when he hit me, and after a time I realized what it was. He’d stripped all the flesh off my bones, and the plummets of the whip were rattling on my dry rib bones. And I knew that I was dead, but it didn’t matter. He would go on and on, and it would never stop, he would go on until I began to fall to pieces and crumble away from the post, and it would never stop, and…”
I moved to take hold of him and make him hush, but he had already stopped himself, gripping the edge of the book with his good hand. His teeth were set hard in the torn flesh of his lower lip.
“Jamie, I’ll stay with you tonight,” I said. “I can lay a pallet on the floor.”
“No.” Weak as he was, there was no mistaking the basic stubbornness. “I’ll do best alone. And I’m not sleepy now. Do ye go and find your own supper, Sassenach. I’ll… just read for a bit.” He bent his head over the page. After a minute of helplessly watching him, I did as he said, and left.
I was becoming more and more worried by Jamie’s condition. The nausea lingered; he ate almost nothing, and what he did eat seldom stayed with him. He grew paler and more listless, showing little interest in anything. He slept a great deal in the daytime, because of sleeping so little at night. Still, whatever his fears of dreaming, he would not allow me to share his chamber, so that his wakefulness need not impair my own rest.
Not wishing to hover over him, even if he would have allowed it, I spent much of my time in the herbarium or the drying shed with Brother Ambrose, or wandering idly through the Abbey’s grounds, engaged in conversation with Father Anselm. He took the opportunity to engage in a gentle catechism, trying to instruct me in the basics of Catholicism, though I had assured him over and over of my basic agnosticism.