Abbot Gunter stared at his monks in the infirmary. Brother Æthelwine lay in a bed as the infirmarer’s assistant, Brother Ælfric, made an ointment for Brother Æthelwine’s back. Brother Wulfric stood there, his arms crossed, with a smug satisfied look on his wolfish face.
“You want to make a deal with the elves?” Abbot Gunter asked incredulously.
Brother Wulfric lost the smirk. “No, not a deal. Ask for a donation! Tell them we have been good neighbours. Brother John gives the elves their offerings and you gave Brother Æthelwine here a place to stay when he was down on his luck. We simply ask Brother Æthelwine’s mother if she would kindly consider donating money to the monastery so her son can continue to make his art.”
“A hefty donation,” Brother Ælfric muttered.
“I’m not asking the Queen of the Forest for a donation,” Abbot Gunter said. “And I’m not going to word it in such a way that it could be interpreted as a threat!”
Abbot Gunter had gotten elf shot once before at the beginning of his abbacy when he forbade Brother John from making offerings to the local elves. It was something he wanted to avoid getting again. In fact, if Gunter had his way, he’d never interact with any elf besides Brother Æthelwine as long as he lived. They were fickle creatures and easily offended. Gunter was pretty sure that the only reason Brother Æthelwine liked him so much was because he allowed him full access to the pigments and he didn’t monitor what he painted all that often. (Occasionally, Abbot Gunter did have to step in and tell Brother Æthelwine not to paint nude male figures in a psalter for nuns, but the longer the elf had been a monk, the less he had to make those statements.) Besides, he also allowed Brother Æthelwine to paint murals in the church and wherever else he pleased as long as they were godly. Both men were pleased with their arrangement.
“Then don’t word it in a way that could be interpreted as a threat!” Brother Wulfric exclaimed.
Abbot Gunter narrowed his eyes. Brother Wulfric shrank back.
“I mean, we could ask nicely? Sir?” The werewolf said meekly.
“No. Find some other way.”
Brother Æthelwine lifted his head. “I do think my mother would say yes. If I asked nicely.”
“I’m not making a deal with the Queen of the Forest.”
“You wouldn’t be making the deal, sir,” Brother Æthelwine said. “I’d be asking my mother if I could have money to buy myself fancy supplies.”
“It will make us look poor!”
“That might not be a bad idea, sir,” Brother Ælfric said. “The Danes have been raiding again.”
“The Danes are always raiding.” Abbot Gunter crosses his arms. “We have protection.”
It was true. The monastery’s walls, Sister Maud’s magic, Brother Æthelwine’s elf shot, and both the monks' and nuns’ ability with bows and arrows were quite good at protecting them from any outside invaders. It also didn’t hurt that one of their patrons was a recently converted Dane and steered any enthusiastic raiders away from their area of Northumbria, claiming that the area was poor and not worth stealing from and people there would be terrible slaves. And if that didn’t deter his fellow country men, their Danish patron was more than happy to tell them the area was rife with leprosy and plague. That usually kept people away. And the one time Danes did come to their monastery, well…Sister Maud made sure that didn’t happen again. Having someone make your raiding party’s leader’s brain haemorrhage, causing blood to pour out of every orifice in their face while they screamed in agony before dying with a simple stare is a very good way to get everyone else in the raiding party to think, “This isn’t worth it.” And go away.
“We do,” Brother Æthelwine said, “But I am sure my mother would be more inclined to assist us should the Danes come again if she knew what exactly I was doing here. What will we do if Sister Maud leaves?”
“She would never leave,” Abbot Gunter said.
“She left when you both went to Lundenburg,” Brother Ælfric pointed out.
Abbot Gunter did not want to entertain this conversation further. They had not actually been to Lundenburg. They had been on the coast, waiting for his child to be born. Every time anyone mentioned that period of his life, it made Abbot Gunter nervous. Not only because of the memories it brought up, but because of the fear his secret would be discovered.
(Abbot Gunter was completely ignorant of the fact that even the stupidest members of his flock had suspected something strange had happened to him and the more conspiratorial of them had pieced together a demon and a child were involved somehow. Through late night whispered rumours and evidence collection between the monks and nuns, they had all come to the conclusion that Abbot Gunter had somehow carried a demon child. This was confirmed by Brother Finnguine’s insistence that no such thing had happened and demons were not transforming men despite the fact that Brother Finnguine wouldn’t shut up about that kind of thing after he came and refused to speak about such things after he found Gunter and returned. Everyone in the monastery agreed that they would not let Gunter know they knew and they would not let any outsiders know either. Any new monks and nuns would be given minimal detail surrounding this affair until they could either be trusted after several years at the monastery or had figured it out on their own and needed to be told to shut up about it. After all, if these secrets got out, Abbot Gunter would probably be banned from being an abbot and if they got a new abbot, that one might actually care about all the rules they all broke regularly, like nuns and monks working in the same scriptorium or eating meat sometimes, or fucking each other like rabbits when Abbot Gunter wasn’t looking. Oh yes, they all knew that Abbot Gunter knew, but as long as they didn’t go too far and had plausible deniability, he would generally ignore their shenanigans. But God help you if you did go too far!)
“Alright, fine!” Abbot Gunter threw up his hands, “You can ask your mother for the funds.”
“Huzzah!” Brother Æthelwine threw up his hands before promptly groaning and putting them down. Abbot Gunter rolled his eyes.
“I also want to make it very clear that this donation is your responsibility and yours alone,” Abbot Gunter continued. “The monastery as a whole has nothing to do with this. It is an agreement between you and your mother.”
“Yes, yes,” Brother Æthelwine winced. “I get it.” He pointed at Brother Wulfric. “Get me a scrap of parchment, some ink, a quill, and Brother Benet’s pet raven. I have a letter to write!”
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I highly doubt that monks had ravens as a way to carry letters. I’ve actually not done research into it. (Ravens are in some hagiographies though!) But in one of the novels I’ve written about these characters, Benet rescues an injured raven and once it’s healed the monastery uses it to carry letters. While (probably) not historically accurate, I wanted Benet to have a pet and a way for the monastery to get information to people quickly that did not involve obvious magic. Artistic licence, if you will. (Whether or not Benet’s raven is magic has yet to be determined. She could be magic. She could be mundane. Who knows…)
