All Fall Down Read Online Free PDF Page A

barn. Don’t worry about them, Isabel. Tell me how you are – and Father – and Ned and Maggie—”
    â€œWe’re well,” I say. “Edward has three teeth now! And he can roll over – and clap , and—”
    â€œClever boy,” says Geoffrey, but he doesn’t really know Edward, or care much about him. How strange to have a brother that you neither know nor love! I can’t really imagine it, any more than I can imagine Alice coming into our family and not loving us, or we not loving her.
    â€œI don’t think they’ll let me come to the Midsummer Fire,” he says. “It’s so busy at the abbey, with all those people! I’ve been working with Galen. Trying to find out if he’s ever come across anything like this pestilence.”
    â€œGalen?” I say. “Is he the infirmarer?”
    Geoffrey laughs. “He’s one of the fathers of medicine!” he says. He must see the confusion still in my face. “He lived hundreds of years ago, Isabel.”
    â€œOh.” Geoffrey always knows more than I do, about everything. “Are you going to be an infirmarer, then?”
    Geoffrey’s head is bent over his boot buckle. He says, not looking up, “Can you keep a secret?”
    â€œOf course,” I say. Robin nods.
    â€œIt’s not decided yet – don’t tell Father – but there’s a chance I might be ordained early.”
    â€œEarly? But why?”
    â€œWhy do you think ?” says Geoffrey, whose mind always leaps ahead to the answer while mine is still trying to understand the question. Because so many priests have died is why, down south in those places where the pestilence has already reached. Because priests are the ones they send into the houses where pestilence is, to breathe in the foul air and give absolution to the dying. Because now they want to send Geoffrey to some strange parish where the priest is dead and everyone in the village is sick, to do the same.
    â€œWill you do it?” says Robin. “If they ask you?”
    â€œI want to,” says Geoffrey, but he still doesn’t look up. I don’t believe he does want to. Geoffrey went to the monastery for the books and for the words and to learn the names of rocks and stars and saints and bones. He didn’t go to sit with the dying. I want to tell him not to do it, not to go. But if you die without a priest to give you absolution and hear your confession, you go to hell. So many people – good people: monks, nuns, Christian folk – so many good people are burning in hell now because their priest died and no new parson came in time. If they ask Geoffrey to serve as a priest, I can’t tell him not to go. And I know my brother. If they ask him, he’ll say yes.
    â€œAnd anyway,” he says, answering the question I didn’t dare ask him, “it’s no more dangerous than staying at St Mary’s.”
    There’s something in his voice that makes me think he wants us to ask him what he means. I don’t want to know what’s hidden behind his words, but Robin says, “Why? You don’t have the pestilence there, do you?”
    Geoffrey’s fingers play around the brass buckle on his boot. He doesn’t answer.
    â€œYou don’t, do you?” says Robin. “Geoffrey! You don’t!”
    Geoffrey’s face is white. “You’re not to tell anyone!” he says. “The abbot doesn’t want anyone in the village to panic. And if Father knew . . .”
    I don’t care about Father. I don’t really care about the abbot. My heart starts racing, and my head is dull and heavy and full of fear. The pestilence is at St Mary’s. The pestilence is three miles away. The pestilence is in the infirmary where my brother Geoffrey works.
    â€œIsabel?” says Geoffrey, and I turn to see his pinched, funny, worried-looking face blinking at me.