The Anger of God

glance in Athelstan’s direction.
    ‘Go on, Father!’ Crim, the altar boy, shouted.
    ‘Of course.’ Athelstan rubbed his eyes. He was beginning to feel tired after his previous day’s labour. ‘Of course God is everywhere, he sees everything, hears everything.’
    ‘Is he in my hand?’ Crim asked.
    ‘Of course.’
    Crim clapped his hands together, in which case he’s trapped. I’ve got him!’
    ‘No, no,’ Athelstan laughingly explained, it’s not like that, Crim.’
    ‘But you said he was everywhere?’
    ‘Crim.’ Athelstan leaned back on his ankles, wincing as his knee cracked. ‘God is like the air we breathe. He’s in us, part of us, yet at the same time outside of us. Like the air which you suck into your mouth and yet, at the same time, it is in your hand.’
    Mugwort the bell ringer bounded into the church and Athelstan winced as the little goblin of a man disappeared into the small enclosure and began to tug like a demon at the bell, the sign for the mid-day Angelus. Athelstan said the prayer, got to his feet and dusted down his robe.
    ‘You can play now. Crim, don’t drink from the holy water stoup. John and James,’ he glanced in mock severity at Tab the tinker’s two sons, as like as two peas out of a pod with their grimy faces and greasy, spiked hair, ‘the baptismal font is not a castle. You can play on the steps but not inside the church. Petronella and Thomas, stay for a while.’
    The rest of the children grinned behind their hands and there was a chorus of ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ as Athelstan ushered them out of the church. The two lovebirds were well known in the parish; to everyone, that is, except their parents.
    ‘Father?’
    ‘Yes, what is it?’ Athelstan looked at the pinched white little face peering out of the tarry, pointed hood. ‘What is it, Roland?’
    The little boy whispered something and Athelstan had to crouch to listen as Ranulf the rat-catcher’s son explained that his father wanted an urgent meeting with Athelstan.
    ‘Yes, yes,’ he replied, straightening up. ‘Tell your father, I’ll see him tomorrow.’
    He chewed his lip to hide his smile for the little boy was the image of his father, with the same cast of features as the very rodents he hunted. The boy scampered off to join the rest and Athelstan walked back up the nave where the two young lovers sat in front of the rood screen.
    ‘Father.’ Thomas got to his feet. ‘You must see our parents soon.’
    ‘Why?’ Athelstan looked nervously at the girl. ‘Has anything happened?’
    She smiled and shook her head.
    ‘Father,’ she pleaded, ‘we have come and told you our secret. You have checked the blood book, there are no ties between us except Thomas’s great-great-uncle was married to a relation of my grandmother.’ The girl ticked the points off on her fingers. ‘We have agreed to receive instruction. Thomas has a fine job with the port reeve at Dowgate and I am very good at embroidery. Father, it was I who made the altar cloths. So why can’t the banns be published?’
    Athelstan held up his hand. ‘All right. I will see your parents this Sunday after morning Mass. Perhaps they can all come for a glass of wine at my house to celebrate the good news?’ He kept the fixed smile on his face as the two love-birds jumped for joy and almost ran down the nave, hand in hand.
    ‘Oh, Lord!’ he breathed. ‘There are only five days left till Sunday and the outbreak of civil war!’ in which case I had better be there!’
    Athelstan smiled. ‘Benedicta,’ he replied without turning round. ‘How long have you been here?’
    ‘Long enough to hear you talking to yourself, Father.’ Athelstan turned and walked down the church to where the widow woman stood, one hand on a pillar. She looked as elegant and beautiful as ever. Her smooth, olive-skinned face framed in a cream-coloured wimple, and those eyes which could be mocking, smiling, tearful, generous, sad and soulful, and those lips... Athelstan slipped his hands up the sleeves of his gown and pinched himself as he remembered the words of scripture: ‘Even if you desire a woman in your mind’s eye...’ He unclasped his hands.
    ‘Benedicta, what brings you here?’
    She grinned impishly. ‘How’s the baking going for the autumn festival?’
    ‘That,’ Athelstan declared heatedly, ‘is the least of my worries.’
    He described his previous day’s visit to the Guildhall, breaking off only when Benedicta began to laugh at