---CLAUDE---

Days after, I kept visiting him. Always passing through the winding dark forest, Ryne called it. I thought that I would memorize landmarks like how Da taught me. Like how he taught me to remember the patches of flowers in season when the meadow still bloomed, or the tracks leading to Rothfield. But the trees in the dark forest seemed to uproot themselves each time I traveled past them. If I didn't know any better, they shifted and shuffled about, confusing those who entered.

Ma was waiting at the door at noonday when I returned, knuckles on her hips, as I emerged from the forest line.

“Well?” she raised her brows.

“He’s fine. Didn’t see the brothers, though.”

Ma nodded and thanked the Saints. I had a feeling that she prayed from that day when she baked the bread that I would find him. Still, Ma sighed and gave me a reproachful, exasperated look that I mostly interpreted as her saying "what am I going to do with you?" before she disappeared inside the farmhouse while I resumed my chores in the fields. The scythe was in my hands as I looked again at the brittle crops. How Wilbur and Ryne managed to bring life into that dark dead soil... was it a miracle? Or was it the opposite? Was it science or alchemy? I gripped the scythe tighter and swung, cutting the base of the dry wheat. I shrugged. I'm just glad they managed to do it.

I took the sheep out to graze in the meadows. I fed the goats and cows hay in their bin, then I poured a bucket of the pigs’ sloppy meals into their trough. Since my hunt for the feverfluke flowers, Ma knew she could not contain me indoors. I just have to be careful not to make her worry. Maybe she was lenient as well because of the lingering bright joy from Annette.

“You still seem to be cheerful,” Ma observed after I was done with work. We were back at the kitchen table near the fireplace. The clouds had once again blocked the sunlight, but it was nice while it lasted.

“Hm?”

“There’s a spring in your step. Did your visit really go that well?"

I smiled, nodded. I did feel lighter. It’s been so long since I’d talked with any of our neighbors. But more than that, I hadn’t met anyone like Ryne before. He thought about things before he spoke them. Maybe it was his upbringing. Maybe it was just how he was born. I liked his quiet eyes. I liked how he listened to my stories. I liked how he invited me back. I didn’t get much sleep that night, already thinking of tomorrow.

___

I noticed when it was time for him to retreat and pray. We would have a few moments to ourselves, and then Ryne would strain. It was the way he winced or grimaced or looked far in the trees or balled his hands. Yesterday, he tried to hide his affliction with a small smile, but I knew. I stood up, returned his smile, and bid him farewell.

Ryne had named them for me. He said that he would rouse himself for matins and lauds. I could not imagine rousing myself like clockwork in the middle of the night. I would like my dreams undisturbed. The prime at dawn. Terce after that when the roosters made the last of the crows. Sext was when I would be walking through the dark forest to meet with him. None was when I witnessed him feeling uncomfortable. I would leave him to his prayers and go back to my own farm to finish my chores. Vespers was when I finished with the field or with other farmwork, where the night chased away the sun. Finally, he would utter his last prayer during compline, and after, both of us went to sleep in our beds.

Four days went by in a blink. Annette was walking around the house again, her soft bare feet tapping on the wooden floorboards. Sometimes, Ma allowed her to stay on the porch outside while she did the laundry. I had just washed my jerkin last night myself when I returned, using ash and some sweet-smelling common flowers in the meadow. During the time that I was in Ryne’s monastery, their crops shot faster than weeds in the fields. Ryne and I began to share tiny moments in our lives and what we thought of the world, using our hands to add shapes to our stories, always sitting on the steps leading to the entrance of the church.

It was still a wonder to me how a place this huge was what the forest kept from the world. Maybe there were others like it somewhere. Maybe this wasn’t even the deepest part of it, after all. Just a grand clearing where the first brotherhood or sisterhood built this place. Ryne thought of it as a time when the Saints walked the earth. If Lord Bahram saw this, he would snatch it away and give it to the local greedy priest, Father Brinley.

The fifth day, I brought him a little present from our farm. I milked our cow and brought a small jug of heated milk and some of our grains with him. It may be of lesser quality, but I had a feeling that it wouldn’t be a problem for them. He wouldn’t throw it in my face like Brinley might do.

I told him of my brothers.

“Nhim was the middle child,” I started. Ryne flicked away dried ivy that fell on the steps. Ryne had once again jumped at the sight of the small jug of milk that I had. I liked making him smile. “He wanted to be a scholar but was denied the priesthood because he was too poor to pay his way inside. Then there’s Garreth who was really proud to be the eldest. He looks just like my mother. Like Annette. They both have light-brown hair and light-brown eyes. Riley, the second, was the rowdiest.”

“How about you?” Ryne asked.

“Ma says I’m a mix between all three. And you?”

“I am not like my brothers,” he said. He looked sad. “But people say Wilbur and I give off similar stances on things.”

I continued, “The only time Riley behaved was when Da disappeared. Before they went to find better work, they all would torment us daily.”

Ryne snickered at that, hiding his teeth behind his hands. “I know what you mean. Wilbur is overprotective of me, still. Woodrow, especially before this, took pleasure in tormenting us. Once he switched my pillow with a sack of flour. Wilbur and I did not talk well with him for yea—weeks.”

“I suppose that’s just part of becoming a family.”

“I’m sorry about what happened to your father. To disappear just like that. I’m just glad that you all worked through it together,” Ryne said. He looked thoughtful. “Your brother. Nhim? He had an interest to be a priest?”

I nodded. The priest in Rothfield Square is a greedy bastard—sorry.” I shook my head and closed my eyes. “But it’s true. Father Brinley has a mean spirit. When Nhim was about Annette’s age, he would go to the little church and quietly look at the small statues of the Saints and want to know more about them. It just so happened that a kinder priest from another town visited Brinley. He discovered my brother just watching and he offered to teach him some letters and the stories of the Saints. Ma and Da were grateful for that priest and soon Nhim was doing less of the farmwork to read. When Brinley found out, he put a stop to the whole thing and sent the kind priest away. He laughed and slammed his church doors in Nhim’s face when he said he wanted to join the priesthood. So, Nhim ventured forth to try and ask for an apprenticeship someplace else that does not ask for money, and does not care much about status.”

“Is that why you won’t enter our doors?” Ryne’s voice was small.

“As you probably can tell, I don’t like the clergy much.” I touched his shoulder and looked into his eyes. “You’re the good sort, I think, but I also think most of them are hypocrites. They seem to think that whatever the Saint teaches doesn’t apply to them.” I dropped my hand and my gaze. Poor Nhim. He would have been a great servant of the people. I just knew it.

“I share your anger,” Ryne said after a while. “I also think that sharing what we know to be true or what is right should be given freely, especially to those that have little. What do the Saints have to give to the rich when they already have wealth? Their stories must soothe the souls of the rest of us who are not so fortunate.”

I stared at him. “What did the monks teach you there? Did they really teach you everything?”

“Everything I know, yes. My letters. My numbers. How to read the Saint’s language.” He recited it to me.

I took the words in. I also heard the priest when he was shouting at the altar. But Ryne was gentle, voice soft. Brinley’s was like a hammer nailing us to the floorboard, adamant to keep us in our place. Below him.

“When it comes from you, it doesn’t sound harsh,” I sighed. I imagined him when he was older. He would be kinder than Brinley ever could. His church doors would be always open to receive everybody who wanted shelter and food.

Food. I looked at the fields. The crops have been growing faster than I could imagine. All I thought about was that if Lord Bahram knew what these monks could do, then he would employ them right away. Or worse, he would snatch this land from their homes and cast them away. But the crops were still growing on the ground and there was no sign of supplies or harvesting from the monastery. What are the odds of stale bread surviving the dust of centuries in the pantry? Did monasteries even have pantries?

“How do you feed yourself? There’s no food around, aside from the ones still growing in the ground,” I said.

“There are rabbits in the forest. Brother Woodrow hunts at night.”

“Is that where he has gone? Hunting rabbits?”

“He’s inside. Sometimes he would be hunting for pheasants and quails, too.”

“I must say, you monks are quite odd.” He looked impassive at first, but before Ryne could respond, I added, “Hunting for yourself, studying books in great detail, surviving a horrible ordeal only to find a grand monastery preserved in time.” I looked at its ivy-filled walls. “It’s as if it was waiting for you.”

His only response was to smile.

“I am glad that at least your fields are prosperous. Our tribute’s coming near. We can manage one more tribute this season but during summer? Bahram may take the land back and sell it. We wouldn’t know where we would go. Ma fears that we may be separated. I’d like to think that we would remain, or move on as a family together, perhaps with one of my brothers. If only we could afford a message to Nhim with his Lady Patron.”

“Claude?”

I went on. “If ever that happens, well, it was nice to have met you, Ryne.” I looked at him and wanted him to know that I was genuine. I did not like it, but if we parted ways, I wanted him to know that I’ll remember him. Perhaps I’ll tell of a story of a ghost child haunting an old monastery when I get older.

“I won’t let that happen,” Ryne said firmly. “And also… I know it’s sudden and I know you have strong feelings on it, but if you were to learn to read and write, would you?”

I thought about it. “If I could not travel the world now, I guess I’d settle for learning about it.”

“I can teach you if you want.”

I stared at him. I think I must have gaped like a fish. “What you say… is no small thing.”

“Why not? It’s the perfect place for it. No one around to shun you. There are no strict rules here.” Ryne was smiling, stirring in my chest a stream of courage. “Besides, do you see any other person here that is available for tutelage?

“But your brothers…”

“No one here is going to stop you from learning.”

I don’t think he fully realizes the weight of the offer he made. My neighbors will sacrifice most of their livestock and give their lands to monks and priests for this opportunity. Now he is handing me what I want like air or water in a cup. Easy and free.

This could change my life. This could change my sister’s life. My brothers’. My mother’s. Generations after me.

He saw me struggling. He grabbed both my hands clammy with sweat. “Don’t think about it as this monumental thing. I just want to give to you what was denied to your brother.” And then he gave a shy smile. “We clergy are not all the same.”

“I know,” I said quickly, squeezing his hand. “I know.”

But I did not give him an answer. When his time for nones prayers came, I left him. I was inside my head as I passed through the dark shifting forest. I was lucky that I did not trip or stumble over the roots and slip on mossy boulders and stones. That night on the kitchen table, Ma snapped her fingers in front of me.

“You’ve barely touched your food, what’s wrong?” She asked, already placing the back of her hand on my forehead.

I shook her hand away. “Nothing.” I ate the food in silence. I, a farm boy, holding pages of books. I, who had only held staffs and tools and grains and fur, would soon hold a feathered pen. That isn’t me. I would love to, but when I dreamed that night of myself reciting the prayers and chants and the stories of the Saints, my voice was that of Father Brinley’s, harsh and cold and cruel.

I woke up in the middle of the night. The farmhouse was silent. I looked from my window over to the dark forest. I wish I could see the monastery from over here. Ryne must be praying right now. Feeling restless, I went into the field and walked along the wheat and barley, my hand absentmindedly catching their seeds. I pocketed them and when I tired myself out, went back to bed.