Jonathan began to weep, but he kept asking questions. “What did you do?”
“I fetched my mother. But while we were returning to the spot, we saw a priest, riding a palfrey, carrying the baby.”
“Francis,” Jonathan said in a choked voice.
“What?”
He swallowed hard. “I was found by Father Philip’s brother, Francis, the priest.”
“What was he doing there?”
“He was on his way to see Philip at St-John-in-the-Forest. That’s where he took me.”
“My God.” Jack stared at the tall monk with tears streaming down his cheeks. You haven’t heard it all yet, Jonathan, he thought.
Jonathan said: “Did you see anyone who might have been my father?”
“Yes,” Jack said solemnly. “I know who he was.”
“Tell me!” Jonathan whispered.
“Tom Builder.”
“Tom Builder?” Jonathan sat down heavily on the ground.“Tom Builder was my father?”
“Yes.” Jack shook his head in wonderment. “Now I know who you remind me of. You and he are the tallest people I ever met.”
“He was always good to me when I was a child,” Jonathan said in a dazed tone. “He used to play with me. He was fond of me. I saw as much of him as I did of Prior Philip.” His tears flowed freely. “That was my father. My father.” He looked up at Jack. “Why did he abandon me?”
“They thought you were going to die anyway. They had no milk to give you. They were starving themselves, I know. They were miles from anywhere. They didn’t know the priory was nearby. They had no food except turnips, and turnips would have killed you.”
“They did love me, after all.”
Jack saw the scene as if it were yesterday: the dying fire, the freshly turned earth of the new grave, and the tiny pink baby kicking its arms and legs inside the old gray cloak. That little scrap of humanity had grown into the tall man who sat weeping on the ground in front of him. “Oh, yes, they loved you.”
“How come nobody ever spoke of it?”
“Tom was ashamed, of course,” Jack said. “My mother must have known that, and we children sensed it, I suppose. Anyway, it was an unmentionable topic. And we never connectedthatbaby withyou,of course.”
“Tom must have made the connection,” Jonathan said.
“Yes.”
“I wonder why he never took me back?”
“My mother left him quite soon after we came here,” Jack said. He smiled ruefully. “She was hard to please, like Sally. Anyway, that meant Tom would have had to hire a nursemaid to look after you. So I suppose he thought: Why not leave the baby at the monastery? You were well cared for there.”
Jonathan nodded. “By dear old Johnny Eightpence, God rest his soul.”
“Tom probably spent more time with you that way. You were running around the priory close all day and every day, and he was working there. If he’d taken you away from the priory and left you at home with a nursemaid, he’d actually have seen less of you. And I imagine as the years went by, and you grew up as the priory orphan, and seemed happy that way, it felt more and more natural to leave you there. People often give a child to God, anyway.”
“All these years I’ve wondered about my parents,” Jonathan said. Jack’s heart ached for him. “I’ve tried to imagine what they were like, asked God to let me meet them, wondered whether they loved me, questioned why they left me. Now I know that my mother died giving birth to me and my father was close to me all the rest of his life.” He smiled through his tears. “I can’t tell you how happy I am.”
Jack felt close to tears himself. To cover his embarrassment he said: “You look like Tom.”
“Do I?” Jonathan was pleased.
“Don’t you remember how tall he was?”
