The Oblate's Confession Read Online Free Page A

me? Given Waldhere’s natural gifts, the obduracy that made Ealhmund as trustworthy a receptacle for secrets as a wooden box, why did Oftfor turn to me? Why burden me with this memory? I do not know. It makes no sense. Yet that is what happened. Even now I can see him standing there, back to the wall, hands behind him as if hiding something. I think I must have given him a look or signed something derisive because I remember his forehead crumpling—and that does make sense, does fit with my memory of the boy, Oftfor’s forehead having been, in its way, as supple an organ of expression as most people’s eyes or mouth. And on this occasion it crumpled uncertainly. He looked at me. Forehead crumpled, Oftfor looked at me, raised a hand, walked two fingers quickly through the air.
    I shook my head, No. Dudda had already explained that. The dead animals were a sign, he’d told us, an omen. They’d said so in Chapter. All the little corpses meant Death was coming, that Death was coming and it rode on the air like a horse. The part about the horse hadn’t made sense to me, but Dudda said he was just repeating what the furnace master had said. Dudda said the furnace master told them there were different kinds of airs, just as there are different kinds of horses, and that bad airs, like the one Death rode, were heavier than good airs. He said this was why Oftfor had found so many dead squirrels and mice, and why all the village dogs were dying. He said that, being smaller than people, living closer to the ground, these animals were more susceptible to heavy lowlying airs. But now that Death had killed all the little animals, it was going to rise. According to Dudda, the whole valley was filling up with Death like a bowl filling up with water. He said the bad air was at our knees now but soon would rise to our necks and then our heads. Waldhere had made a joke about this. He’d said that Oftfor would die first and then me and then Ealhmund. He said he would last the longest because he was the tallest. He laughed when he said it but you could tell he didn’t really think it was funny. Which was why I didn’t want to go to the reredorter.
    No! I shook my head, No!
    Oftfor closed his eyes, opened them again. He turned his head, looked down the length of the wall at his back. I looked down that way but there was nothing to see, just beds, a few windows, the gray and rainy light. Oftfor looked back at me, his expression different now, changed, a decision of some sort apparently made. He brought his hands from behind his back. He was holding a piece of bread.
    I glanced over at the door, made sure it was closed, then stood up, walked to the nearest window. The garth was reassuringly empty. I looked back at Oftfor, smiled. He entered the reredorter ahead of me.
    We’d been using the necessarium ever since Hlothberht caught us digging graves behind the lavabo. I had no idea why Oftfor took such pleasure in searching out and finding the dead animals, but, whatever the reason, the resulting funerals had provided something of a diversion. Or at least they had until now. Now that we knew what each of these deaths signified, how much closer they brought us to Dudda’s full bowl of water, I was—I think for understandable reasons—less interested in make-believe. A few brief words, maybe a priestly gesture or two, and then I was going to tip whatever bundle of fur and bones Oftfor had found this time down the nearest hole and eat that bread!
    Oftfor took up a position by the window, arms firmly at his sides, neither bread nor beast in evidence. Something about his posture made me think he was planning on being the priest, but— food or no food—I wasn’t going to let that happen. Heretofore Waldhere had filled that role; this time it was my turn.
    Oftfor raised an arm.
    Before I could stop him or object, Oftfor raised an arm and— his sleeve slipping down toward his shoulder—the little room filled suddenly with a bad