A narrow shaft of moon-light picked out the earthenware jug at the side of Brother Anselm�s mattress, making it strangely luminescent. The effect, however, was only momentary: the first signs of dawn were already visible through an opening high on the cell wall. From across the courtyard came the introductory note of the cantor, leading into the Benedicite. The hymni matutinales had begun.
Brother Anselm seldom missed Lauds. Today, however, into the sixth week of his fast, the feebleness of his flesh overcame his spirit. He had not attended the readings of scripture in the refectory for some time, the effort required to refuse all food proving beyond him. Rising on one skeletal arm, he took a sip of water from the jug.
His case had been heard before no less a dignitary than Abbot Guillaume de Beaucaire himself, who had taken time off from affairs of state to preside. But, then, Anselm�s offence was no simple matter of failure to respect the Rule. Issues of doctrine were considered serious at the very highest level.
Until only two months earlier, Anselm had enjoyed a reputation for both clarity and orthodoxy. He was one of very few permitted to dispute with scholars from outside the order. It had been, indeed, during one of these formal disputations that he had uttered the phrase leading to his present penance.
Such events provided welcome entertainment; and a row of brothers in cowled grey habits had sat on either side of the hall. At issue had been the nature of the Devil. The disputant ─ a tall, gaunt youth from one of the secular foundations that were springing up ─ had chosen to argue that Creator and Adversary were co-equal Powers, eternally in conflict. This was a Manichean heresy Brother Anselm could refute with ease. Satan, he pronounced, was of only a subordinate order, brought into existence by the Creator Himself to test men�s faith.
As soon as he had made the point, however, a different argument had crossed his mind. When men fell from grace, was it not largely because they lacked the self-discipline to control their own inherently fallen natures? Without thinking, Brother Anselm had added a peroration:
�The disputant asserts that the Evil of this world is the work of a countervailing Power. No such entity, however, is necessary to explain faults that lie rather within ourselves. Indeed, it is possible that no Devil exists at all!�
At first there had been silence. Then anxious whispers had wound their way up and down the rows of cowled figures. Finally Prior Godfroi had risen and, silence being restored, had ordered Brother Anselm to his cell. Thereafter, the disciplinary proceedings had taken their course.
Brother Anselm recognised that the penance required of him had been appropriate. Had it not been after forty days and forty nights of fasting in the wilderness that the Devil had appeared to tempt Our Lord? Soon he would perhaps face his real trial�.
