I thought that was it. I thought they were about to catch me.
Stools scraped against the floor and there was a shuffle of feet; I turned and saw the bishop’s attendants shouting and waving for silence. One with a deep voice called for the doors to be closed. The harpist had stopped playing; the laughing and singing had ceased, but there was a muttering and murmuring as people heard what was happening. The bishop himself had turned white as a cloud, seemingly frozen to his seat, his eyes filled with horror, while all around him was commotion.
‘Everyone stay where you are,’ the reeve bellowed. ‘No one leaves this hall!’
Of course I was panicking when he said this. Every instinct told me to run, to drop the ring without anyone noticing and get out of there as soon as possible. But I didn’t do that.
Instead I said, ‘I see it!’
While everyone turned to look but before they had any idea what was happening, I let the wooden dishes I was carrying fall and hurled myself under the table. I scrambled past the legs of the assembled churchmen, ignoring their shouts of protest, towards one of the reeve’s hounds, which was sniffing at a morsel that had fallen amid the straw and the rushes and the sawdust. It yelped in surprise when it saw me coming, then darted away. For an instant I pretended to fumble in the straw and the sawdust before rough hands grabbed my shoulders and dragged me out from beneath the table and on to my feet. Men were demanding to know what I was doing, and my heart was pounding as I unfurled my fist, and in open palm held the missing ring out towards the bishop, who was sitting across the table.
‘Here, Lord Bishop,’ I said, and swallowed because my throat was dry. I hoped no one noticed how I was trembling. ‘It was on the floor. It must have rolled off the table. I saw the dog go near it. You’re lucky he didn’t swallow it.’
A hush fell across the hall; the hands on my shoulders were withdrawn. The bishop rose from his stool, his look of confusion turning to one of relief.
‘My dear boy, bless you,’ he said as one of the other priests plucked it from my palm and laid it before him. ‘These rings were a gift left to me by my predecessor in his will, and to him by his predecessor in turn. If I’d lost one, I’d never have forgiven myself. Truly you are Heaven-sent. What is your name?’
I told him and said earnestly that I was the miller’s son, the youngest of six, in my eleventh summer, and that I was honoured to serve at his table and humbled to meet him, and that his grace and kindness were well known to everyone.
‘And so well spoken,’ he said, smiling gently. ‘We must see that you are rewarded handsomely for your help. Are you a good Christian?’
To tell the truth, I didn’t understand really what he meant by that. At that age all I knew was that a thousand years ago there’d been a man called Jesus Christ who was killed by the Romans, and that he was the son of the one God, and that we should pray to them and live according to their rules, because if we did those things and forswore all other spirits and superstitions then we would live for ever in their heaven.
I didn’t say any of that, though. Instead I replied simply that I thought I was, that I tried to be, although it wasn’t easy, and I hoped that answer would please him.
Bishop Leofgar smiled. ‘Alas, when is it ever easy? Tell me, do you go to church often? Do you receive the sacrament?’
When I could, I said, although I told him that a priest only came to us once every three months, and sometimes less often than that if the weather had been bad and the roads were impassable.
He nodded sagely. ‘Perhaps there is something I can do. A youth of such virtue and honesty as yourself should be better placed to receive God’s grace. Where is your father? May I speak with him?’
I said I would fetch him, and he bade me do so. Of course my father, when I found him back at the house, didn’t believe me when I said breathlessly that Bishop Leofgar wanted to see him and that he wanted to reward me, but when I wouldn’t stop harassing him he gave in and let me take him to the feasting hall, where he was surprised to find that I was telling the truth.
The reeve sent me to the storehouse to bring in another large cheese for the table so I wasn’t there to hear what exactly passed between the two of them, but the substance of it was this: the bishop wanted to provide me with a place in his household, where I would receive schooling in letters and the other arts and one day learn to deliver the sermon. My father must have thought he was joking at first, that a son of his should be considered worthy by someone so exalted, but I think he was glad to be rid of me, for when the bishop and his travelling party took to the road again after their stay three days later, I went with them. No one asked me whether I wanted to go or not; it had been agreed and that was that.
And so it was that a thief and a liar came to be a priest.