The Burning Land. Bernard Cornwell

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       One

      Not long ago I was in some monastery. I forget where except that it was in the lands that were once Mercia. I was travelling home with a dozen men, it was a wet winter’s day, and all we needed was shelter, food and warmth, but the monks behaved as though a band of Norsemen had arrived at their gate. Uhtred of Bebbanburg was within their walls and such is my reputation that they expected me to start slaughtering them. ‘I just want bread,’ I finally made them understand, ‘cheese if you have it, and some ale.’ I threw money on the hall floor. ‘Bread, cheese, ale, and a warm bed. Nothing more!’

      Next morning it was raining like the world was ending and so I waited until the wind and weather had done their worst. I roamed the monastery and eventually found myself in a dank corridor where three miserable-looking monks were copying manuscripts. An older monk, white-haired, sour-faced and resentful, supervised them. He wore a fur stole over his habit, and had a leather quirt with which he doubtless encouraged the industry of the three copyists. ‘They should not be disturbed, lord,’ he dared to chide me. He sat on a stool beside a brazier, the warmth of which did not reach the three scribblers.

      ‘The latrines haven’t been licked clean,’ I told him, ‘and you look idle.’

      So the older monk went quiet and I looked over the shoulders of the ink-stained copyists. One, a slack-faced youth with fat lips and a fatter goitre on СКАЧАТЬ