A Vision of Light Read Online Free PDF Page B

this great thing for David! Don’t take it from him out of rage. Come tomorrow, or better yet, I’ll send my husband with his own answer to the church tomorrow. Oh, think of the boy, and not of his father!”
    Mollified, the priest looked sharply at her.
    “Tomorrow, then,” he said. “I’ll wait until Compline, then no longer”—and he strode away.
    The brewing could be left no longer, and as I turned to attend it, I heard mother shrieking through the open window, “I tell you, I will have it! Had Martin lived, he would have been even greater than that!” That winter David went up to the abbey, and mother’s fine ale paid the bill.
     
     
     
    B ROTHER G REGORY STOPPED AND sighed. This was going to require tact.
    “This writing is very long,” he said. Silently he swept his mournful, intelligent dark eyes across the neat rows of small letters on the last page. It was good Italian paper, and the effect was nice. But Brother Gregory was not admiring his work. He was hoping that no one would ever recognize his handwriting.
    “Are you worried about the cost? There is more paper, and we have more of these too.” Margaret picked up a quill and felt its softened, splayed tip. Then she cocked her head and peered at the writing with the shrewd stare of an illiterate who is determined not to be cheated.
    “Just read me back that last bit, so I can hear what it sounds like,” she said firmly, as if she were bargaining for an oxtail in the market.
    Brother Gregory read it gravely. The serious expression on his face, tinged with vague annoyance, made him look older than he really was. The impression was reinforced by the shapeless, shabby, ankle-length gray gown that he wore, which had given Margaret the vague notion that he might be a Franciscan. It was entirely threadbare at the elbows and the seat, the two weakest points in any scholar’s wardrobe. On a worn leather belt he wore a purse, a pen case, an inkhorn, and a knife in a plain sheath. On cold days like this one he wadded a pair of battered leggings under his sandals and put a sheepskin cape, its matted wool facing outward, over his gown. Shaving being an expensive habit, his tonsure and beard had begun to grow out, and his fierce dark eyebrows were now overshadowed by an unruly tangle of black curls.
    Margaret nodded as she heard him read back what she’d said, and found herself wondering how old he really was. Very old, maybe thirty. No, perhaps not that old. Maybe really not that much older than she was. It was the serious look he had when he was concentrating on his writing that made him look old. Margaret had formed the habit of observing Brother Gregory very closely as he worked. At first there was the matter of the spoons. And then there was the problem of the writing, which went on for pages and pages. It seemed to look real: that is, it was all different, as well as being neat and small. Margaret watched the curiously delicate movements of Brother Gregory’s big hands as they traced the looping line of ink across the paper. She knew from her own sewing that fine movements like that can only be the product of long training. Still, she would test the process after each few pages by having him read back a bit aloud. It was always a relief to hear him say it back exactly as she’d said it.
    The late afternoon light sifted through the thick lenses of leaded glass that made up the small windowpane, and left a narrow, luminous track across the oaken writing table. The clatter and bang from the kitchen suggested supper soon ready. A clamor of shrill voices was followed by the crash of a door and scurrying footsteps.
    “Mistress Margaret, Mistress Margaret, the girls are fighting again! It is only a trinket, a trifle over a doll’s dress. I would have shaken them both for disturbing you so, but you said no hand should touch them but yours, and so I have come!” The old nurse shook her head and muttered to herself, “Vixens, vixens both! They’ll never