The Kingdom of Heaven

‘Hear us, O Lord. Have mercy.’ The words in Latin echoed around the clearing. Brother Andrew looked over at the freshly-dug mound of earth. All around it were recent crosses, in this part of the wood, bordering the village. The mound before him was still raw, the soil turned only that morning, a light brown almost like dried blood. His voice rose and fell, in the cadences he had recently learned in the monastery. Established as a closed order, some of the brothers were now released into more public service, owing to the dire need for offices at funerals. He fell back naturally to what he knew best.

     ‘God’s wrath is among us,’ he announced confidently, then paused as he thought of the local priests who had also died, necessitating his own presence here. The family of the deceased stood before him, looking from him to the new grave. ‘But also God’s sorrow… the comfort of our Lord is very near,’ he finished.

     The father stood, hands callused in his farm labour, his heavy-set face blank. The mother stood by him, clutching their latest baby. It was coughing and squirming into her shawl. A girl of about six fidgeted by them, looking over at the grave. She seemed suspicious of Brother Andrew.

     He was thinking of the cloistered silence he was used to, and how while there he would gain from keeping silent, rather than like this. Anything but this. He had to do something. There was no garden to tend here, other than the graves daily increasing around him. There were still prayers to be said, but so few to take comfort from them. He had to do something.

     He took a deep breath, and motioned to the gravedigger to start filling in the hole. Then Brother Andrew reached over and picked up a twig, recently fallen from a beech in autumn. He cleared his throat, awkwardly.

     ‘I… will remember you. Our Lord will hear, and answer. I am his messenger, and he will hear you, day and night. I will… continue to say offices for you.’ He swiped his back with it, once, twice. He set his face to the open road, beyond the clearing, out of the wood. He had to do something. There was the regular sound of the earth being shovelled back into the grave. The baby coughed, and squirmed.