The Treasures of Heaven

Matthew swallows the gold coin, squeezing his eyes shut as it slips gradually down his throat.

It is cold and hard. Rough cut and unfiled. A crudely shaped sovereign the size of a tunic button. It hurts as he swallows it, slowly travelling the length of his oesophagus the way a bird egg will travel the lithe length of an adder’s body.

“…No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon…”

Standing at the dais reading aloud from scripture, Brother Simon’s voice is neutral, devoid of irony. “…Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on…”

The westerly wind blew spray and the smell of the ocean through the window of the monastery. He can hear the calls of seabirds like the cries of children and the distant boom hiss of the waves as they lap the loose shingle of the shore.

“…Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns…”

The coin has reached his stomach. He fancies he can hear it clink as it comes to rest, joining the sixteen other sovereigns he has swallowed that morning.

“…yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?”

The Abbot turns his shale grey gaze in his direction. He points to the table in front of him, grease stained and ring marked with the ghost of past meals. On it now is the last supper. Three leather sacks. Their mouths slack and open, spilling gold coins over the scarred and pitted surface.

He picks up another coin and turns it over slowly. It winks at him in the silvery, rain-washed light. He puts it in his mouth and swallows. It is cold and hard. Rough cut and unfiled.

***

His father knelt in the dust of the street and kissed the priest’s out-stretched hand.

The land they worked was Church land, but no easier to till for that. There had been a bad harvest and people were hungry.

“If we give what little we have then there will be no grain for next year’s harvest,” his father had told the priest.

The man had looked around the village as if weighing its worth. The houses of wattle and thatch were bare of ornamentation or splendour. The people stood outside in the summer heat and bowed their heads, waiting. Somewhere a child cried.

“The poor you will always have with you,” said the priest. His fat, red tongue tasting the air. “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.”
They took half the grain and six of the village children. Because his father had been the headman he was given a great honour.
Matthew would make a fine oblate.

***

Outside they can hear raised voices. There is argument and laughter. It is followed by a scream, a keening that peters out into nothingness, freezing the marrow of those within the monastery.

“…A-And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the f-field, how the grow; they toil not, n-neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these…”

The door to the chamber shakes. It seems to Matthew that the locking bar must give soon under the barrage.

“Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?”

One of the Brothers, seated nearest the door, hitches up his cassock and runs. There is nowhere to go but back to the dead-end of his cell.

***

It sometime seemed to Matthew that he had been on the monastery for a lifetime. But then he would remember Brother Erasmus and realised it was nothing.

Erasmus was hump-backed, like one of the leviathans that swam the sea around the island. He did not know his age, but he knew exactly how long he had been a Brother. Scores of vertical lines were scratched onto his cell wall, one for each midsummer he had been in the Order.

Forty-eight marks.

Matthew knew this, for he had often counted them by the light of a tallow candle. He sounded the numbers as the monk instructed him, his breath warm and rank on his back.

Forty-eight marks.

A litany in the long nights he was an oblate.

One…two…three…four…five…six…seven…

Thoughts of home and family kept him warm on the coldest of nights. Their heat undiminished by the pain and the grunting of Brother Erasmus.

Two years after he had arrived at the monastery Matthew’s brother had visited him. When he had left, Tom had been a handsome lad of seventeen and filled with hope for the future.

The Tom that turned up had been almost unrecognisable. A shiny, puckered burn scar marred his left cheek, pulling his mouth into a sneer. His eye was a washed-out white, his left ear red and weeping. He was near starved, dressed in louse ridden, mud stiffened rags.

They were dead, he had told him.

Tom had been courting, visiting the baker’s daughter down the street when a fire broke out. He tried to rescue them, but had been overcome by the smoke and heat.

A neighbour had rescued him from the flames and for a time death was very near, he said. In his delirium Tom had seen mother and father and knew they had gone to a better place. A place where there was no suffering, no pain.

Tom came to envy them. The fire had eaten his hands and left him lame. He lived now on pity. Pity tasted exactly like bile, he said. He had had his fill of pity.

Matthew had looked at him then and said nothing. His sneering mouth made him look cruel in the sparse light from the cell window. After a moment Matthew saw that he was crying. Tears rolled from his right eye, caressing the unblemished skin of his cheek. His left eye stared lifelessly, its milky-white translucence seeing nothing.

The Lord had abandoned them, Tom said.

The year after Matthew and the other children were taken, the priest had returned. It was as their father had predicted. There was not enough seed for the harvest and there was famine. The year before, in their hunger, they had swept the forests, dells and streams of fish and game. Now there was nothing and the villagers were dying. Father had vowed to make a stand. There could be no taxes that year. Mother Church must feed its children.

The men-at-arms had come in the night, Tom said. They fired the thatch and disappeared into the darkness. They had been made an example of. God’s judgement.

Matthew had wanted to leave the monastery then. There was no anger, only a deep disgust that flipped and squirmed inside his belly like the worms of the grave. Tom had stopped him.

He watched as his brother, half-starved, crammed the poor bread and cheese of the monastery into his mouth. Was he mad? he asked. The world was a terrible place. When Matthew was taken it had been difficult. But they had come to see it for what it was. A blessing. Matthew would never have to worry about the clothing on his back or the food on his plate. There would always be a roof over his head and someone to nurse him in sickness. He would be a fool to give that up, said Tom.

But the Church had murdered his family. How could he forget that?

Tom had reached forward and grasped his brother’s arms. The fingers of his right hand were rough and callused. His left, soft and over-smooth.

The world was a terrible place, he said again. It was greed that drove men to sin. The Church, although inspired by God, was the work of men. If people truly believed then things could be changed, he said. Things could be different. Only good people could make a good Church.

Stay and make a difference, Tom had told Matthew. Teach them that greed and gold are not the way. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

***

The money sacks are empty. The gold has been devoured, hidden where the Abbot knows it will never be found.

“…Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?...”

Wood begins to crack and splinter. Panic is in the room, as palpable as Matthew’s heart-beat. The sea wolves have arrived.

“…for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you…”

The door crashes open. The man who enters wears an iron helmet, crested by a pair of outstretched eagle wings. His face is dark and sun licked, his beard as fine as. He carries an axe in his right hand, its blade stained red with blood. His arms are thickly muscled, the blue stain of tattoos like the sensuous coils of serpents.

As he steps over the threshold he touches the iron hammer around his neck, calling on Thor’s protection against the powerful magic of the White Christ.

“W-We are poor brothers, sworn to poverty,” says the Abbot. “We have no gold or treasure.”

The man steps close until they are almost touching. The sea wolf towers over the monk, fixing him with his needle stare.

“Give us gold and we go. No gold, then we burn you alive in this hall.”

At this moment all are united by their dilemma. All know where the treasure is hidden, have swallowed their share. Yet all know the word of a sea wolf is nothing. Their bellies will be cut as a thief will slit a fat purse to free the gold within. The stones ringing with the music of coins even as it is soaked in their blood. All curse the Abbot, for all know that silence is their only hope.

Two more wolves join the flock. They grab the Abbot and hold him over the table.

Brother Simon, overcome with terror, grips the dais until his knuckles are white. He does not look up from the illuminated letters in front of him. He is shouting, as if the Lord is deaf and cannot hear his pleas.

“T-Take therefore no t-thought for the morrow: for the m-morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. S-Sufficient u-unto the day is the evil thereof.”

The wolves laugh. One of them raises his axe. The Abbot closes his eyes; death is on its way.

“Enough!”

A man stands at the door. His helmet is of the finest workmanship, free of the blossoming of rust. His sword would buy three horses or eight comely slaves.

“There is nothing here,” he says. “It is as they say. They are poor Brothers. We have searched and there is nothing. Come, there is no honour in killing unarmed men.”

The sea wolves look doubtfully at their Lord. Their faces dark at being deprived of their sport. But they obey and the Abbot offers a silent prayer.

Matthew knows what he must do. He rises to his feet; the coins shifting in his stomach, making him feel sick.

It was as Tom had said. Greed drives men to sin and the Church is the work of men. He will teach them that greed and gold are not the way.

He tells the sea wolves where the gold is hidden.

When the dagger slips into Matthew’s belly, his Brother’s bellies, he thinks of God and mammon. He thinks finally of the treasures in Heaven.

The End.