What happened next — Carol wanted to know.

Writing stories has brought me many blessings, not the least of them being the people from far-flung places around the world who find their way to me — usually through this blog — and become dear friends, mostly via email correspondence. 

One such friend, Carol, one of the people to whom The Light of One Lamp is dedicated, wrote to me a day or two back, wanting to know if in due course Nicholas had his sight gradually restored, and if he did ever become a monk in the end.

It occurred to me that some of you might have wondered the same thing. This is what I was able to tell Carol:

Yes, he did; both those things. His eyesight was never that wonderful, but he faithfully followed what he was told to protect his health, and obtained signficant improvement, enough to greatly ease his practical daily difficulties.  

The first thing Abbot John did when he'd finished his recuperative stint in the infirmary was to receive Nicholas into the community as a postulant. When Nicholas entered, he gave Gervase Bonvallet (who was very pleased with them) his beautiful blue woollen hood with the liripipe, and his green and blue surcotes. He carried on working in the pottery, becoming much better at that craft than Brother Robert, who was proud of him and didn't mind at all. Nicholas took his simple vows in 1327 and his solemn vows in 1328. His name in religion was Brother Barnabas. His reception into that community was a pride and joy and massive relief to his mother Melissa; he made the right choice and lived very happily there. Seeing him around the place continued to be an eery reminder of his grandfather, whom he so resembled.

 

And — I don't think I would have expected this, but it did happen — over time Brother Cyril was priested, and he became the abbot of that community in due course, after Abbot John. I don't yet know the circumstances that made them decide he should go to the university and become a priest, but I do know what happened that first drew their attention to his inner resolve and authority.

In fact, Cyril was their abbot when St Alcuins reached the dread year of 1348. At one point I intended to write the story of that — a book that would have been called The Plague Angel — but I didn't have the heart to write it in the end, because they were all lost, that whole community, as the Black Death swept the country. It was heartbreaking. They were just gone, doors banging in the wind, all the accoutrements of a life left behind. I realised you wouldn't want to read about that.

Brother Michael was still their infirmarian then, and John (an old man by that point) worked alongside him after he'd done his stint as abbot and handed over to Cyril. It — the plague — became the scenario Michael sometimes had nightmares about. But they were steadfast and brave, continuing quietly, doing their best and caring for one another, right through to the end, putting one foot in front of the other, persevering in love and in prayer, prioritising kindness.

That would have been an awful book though, wouldn't it? People go to St Alcuins for comfort and support, to lift their spirits and think about how to live faithfully. I don't think that chronicle would have helped! So I didn't write it down.

But meanwhile, from time to time I will still go there and talk to them and watch how they live in the timeline where I can find them, and I can tell you about that if you like.