Sins of the Father

By RJ Palmer

Bowen is an orphaned child in feudal England whose first appearance in this novel is having been bound hands and feet and whipped mercilessly by the monks in a monastery in an excess of bloodlust. He's realistically of an indeterminate age but no more than about seven years old and the monks are very sadistic. He's punished repeatedly for any number of minor and inconsequential infractions.

Aaron is a minister in present day Midwest America who takes a short sabbatical after he has a fainting episode while experiencing the marks of the stigmata immediately preceding a sermon that he's supposed to deliver about Faith Unending, a concept with which he's struggling himself.

Lucian is a severely autistic child in the present day who's found homeless and taken to a mental health center after a fire in an abandoned building in which he's sleeping. He's horribly scarred and disfigured and bears a striking resemblance to Bowen and Aaron. He takes a liking of a sort to Aaron, who has eyes of the same amethyst color as his. He also bears a mark on his chest which looks like a brand and is the mark of the Celtic war god Rudianos.

• Language: English
• Publisher: RJ Palmer
• Release date: Apr 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476447759

RJ Palmer

There is nothing the least bit interesting about me and in truth sometimes I believe that I live vicariously through characters of my own creation in which case I should probably seek professional help straightaway. I could bore you with dry facts recited by rote but that would be contra-indicative of my personality type which demands that I at least make this somewhat interesting regardless of the enormity of the task involved. Easier said than done I can assure you. RJ Palmer on Self Publishing To be completely truthful I've found that more off beat authors who have acquired a faithful following have the more richly woven stories. That's not to say that authors who receive a lot of attention are not by all means talented I simply believe that in the practice of traditional publishing there are a select group of authors that receive almost all the attention for one reason or another and I believe that this is an effective way for publishing houses to tell a reader what they're supposed to like which is something with which I do not agree. In keeping with this train of thought I believe that there are hundreds of incredibly talented authors who do not get the attention that they deserve and the opportunity to share their talents with the world which would be an enriching experience for anyone who has the pleasure of stumbling upon their work.

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COPYRIGHT

Sins of the Father

RJ Palmer

Copyright RJ Palmer 2012

Published at Smashwords

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people without the permission of it’s author. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the author and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Copyright © 2012 RJ Palmer

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1475277431

ISBN-13: 978-1475277432

DEDICATION

Sins of the Father is for my kids; Damien, Devon and Kaelyb, who've been hurt so much and still find reasons to smile. This is also for my Dragon. I can't possibly list all the reasons here, but I'm sure he knows them anyway.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Athanasios who made a picture worth a thousand words and made it look really cool in the bargain. To Felicia, who saw my vision and made it look really good. You two have got some mad skills.

CHAPTER 1

Feudal England, Exact Date Unknown

Tortured screams echoed off the cold stone walls of the monastery and danced into the satin black of the night. Here and there from the confines of the bordering woods, wolves howled a lonely reply to the bloodcurdling cry that was carried on the cooling breeze, whispering a spell into the tops of the trees. In scant moments the screams were heard again, upsetting birds in their nests that sang an irritated song and were quiet again. Only one wolf answered this time, her response trailing off as if she were unsure from whence the call came, her ears flattening to the sides of her head in mild alarm. Her sensitive nose twitched delicately as she tried to identify the source of the malodor carried on the wind.

In the clearing where the great, imposing structure stood was also a village. No lights shone in the darkness from the direction of the cottages. The silvery light from the full moon that spilled in through crudely cut windows nevertheless revealed some of the villagers quickly crossing themselves before they hurried back to their beds to await the coming dawn.

From inside the hulking stone monastery came another agonized bellow and the flames on the torches in the wall sconces mounted at regular intervals flickered and bowed forlornly in deference to the wind that wafted unchecked through the halls.

In a small, windowless room situated off the library and secured by a massive oaken door, that was in turn hidden behind a rather large and ornate hanging tapestry, gathered a circle of perhaps twenty friars repeating a low and nearly indistinguishable prayer in perfect unison that had taken on the quality of a hypnotic chant. Their foreheads were furrowed with the concentration required to continue voicing their supplication in harmony and sweat beaded their brows as one friar drew back his arm to reveal a vicious looking whip. He brought it down again with a resounding crack on the back of the child, bound and quaking in their midst, who wailed in response. Malicious glee and a thirst for blood colored his countenance in sickly opposition to the piety of the chant that reverberated all around him.

Bless the child…save the child…

The chant was repeated as a litany and in tandem with the fall of the whip so that each time it was repeated, the crack of the lash sounded again and the child shrieked once more, his back marked by previous beatings too numerous to count.

Again the whip fell and the child, with a guttural groan of purest agony, collapsed at their feet and lapsed into unconsciousness.

One among the friars was charged with the keeping of a chalice of holy water, which he held aloft for a moment before pouring it onto the face of the child to rouse him.

The child coughed and sputtered, and then levered himself into a kneeling position and, with every muscle in his body straining, he struggled to stand. Holding himself upright by nothing more than sheer will, he faced the circle of friars with all the proud defiance he could muster.

The hate burning in the eyes of the friars which he faced gained intensity and he steeled himself for the blow he already knew was coming.

He didn’t have long to wait. He saw the shadow that fell on the wall as the friar standing behind him raised his arm. The friar brought it down and the boy shouted again as fire touched his back. He felt keenly the sticky warmth of the blood that began to drip down his back as this time, the lash laid it open. At least the gash didn’t hurt as badly as the burning welts, the boy reflected dimly as the lash fell once again and his hoarse keen of pain was all but drowned out by the exultant roar of the one who wielded the whip.

Trembling and nauseous, the child fought the urge to faint away as colors floated malevolently in front of his eyes. To faint again would bring only greater punishment at a later time, he knew, so he fought with every fiber of his being the black void that crept into the periphery of his vision. He was rewarded for his steadfast effort as the urge to vomit got stronger and the excruciating, razor edged agony that pulsed in the flesh of his back grew and throbbed increasingly with each beat of his heart, but he did not pass out.

Rage welled from deep within the core of his very being and the boy nursed it tenderly and solicitously. He had begun to understand long before that the fury kept him alive. He worked desperately and with a singular focus to force the pain into a dark corner of his mind, to lock it away so that he would feel the searing hurt though he would no longer acknowledge it.

The chant rose to a crescendo in his ears and the lash fell once more. Gritting his teeth and battling the need to cry out, the boy bore his whipping stoically. By his count, that was thirteen lashes, two more to go. The pious friars, he reflected with a poignant bitterness, never forced a whipping on him that exceeded fifteen lashes, though they also lashed him no less than every other night so that the welts would have just begun to heal when they beat him again and the cuts would be laid open once more to add to the multitude of scars that now crisscrossed his back.

The whip sounded and fire touched his back once again. Tears that he couldn’t control and yet fought to contain welled in his eyes and he bit his lip until he tasted his own blood. The tears would make the brothers happy he knew. He also knew that they would in turn feed the self-righteous bloodlust that seethed just beneath the surface of each of their carefully cultivated faithful mannerisms, and the very thought of satisfying or feeding the twisted need for pain and power that all the friars studiously disguised sickened him. Lifting his eyes to the ceiling, he refused to blink because he knew from experience that if he did not blink, the tears would not fall.

Bless the child…save the child…

The litany sounded again and the boy braced himself. Taking in the brothers that stood before him in a single swift glance, he saw that they had noticed the tears that he tried not to shed. Victory burned fiercely in their eyes and one gave the barest nod to the friar behind him, who brought the whip down on his back with a reverberant crack. Unable to help it any longer, the boy crumpled amid the circle of friars with a pathetic whimper of unendurable hurt.

Trembling with fury and sweating from exertion, the friar cast the whip aside and signaled that the child be taken away. His hands and feet still bound and his head hanging, shudders racking his body, the boy was grasped cruelly by the arms and hauled upright with no regard for the bruises, welts, gaping wounds, and brutally reopened scars that bled freely and glistened wetly in the firelight.

They dragged the beaten boy down a series of halls and passageways to his room, where they untied the leather straps and crudely laid him on his pallet on the floor. They draped a single wool blanket over him and watched with no small degree of triumph as he winced and murmured a soft plea for relief. Blood had already seeped through the wool of the blanket when one of the friars knelt beside the child and, in a last bid to indulge his sadism rubbed the boy’s back. The friar smiled with hateful glee when the boy gasped and tensed, whispering in the child’s ear, Peace be with you and may God Almighty keep you, my child. And then he left, his footsteps falling with nary a sound on the stone floor.

Dizzy with the stinging discomfort that pulsed in his back, the child levered himself upright far enough to move about six inches to his left. Into the bowl placed next to his pallet that served as a chamber pot, he threw up as quietly as he could manage. He collapsed back onto his bedding and passed out, oblivion caressing him gently and offering him an escape from the agony that he had neither the strength nor the will to refuse.

CHAPTER 2

Feudal England 16 Months Later, Exact Date Unknown

The smell of imminent death permeated the air, sickly sweet and nauseating at the same time. The boy, who sat quietly at the bedside of the fatally ill friar, offered the bowl that he held at the ready so that the brother that lay on the bed might struggle as far into a sitting position as he was able and, for the fourth time in as many hours, vomit copious amounts of blood.

When the friar had finished, he fell weakly back onto the bed and winced as the action brought with it a spasm of coughing that rattled wetly in his throat and strained his body, frail and wasted by months of illness, to the breaking point.

The boy, who had been charged with the friar’s care and keeping, could not help the feeling of satisfaction and the pure, unadulterated loathing that coursed through his body at the sight of the emaciated friar whose once robust health was now little more than a sad memory. The man was a shell of his former self and the putrid odor that rose from his body, courtesy of both his illness and the fact that he had been too weak for several weeks to bathe, had cost him most of the care of the other occupants of the monastery. The man had been unable to hold even the smallest bite of food, only water and broth, in his rebelling stomach for nigh three months, and starvation starkly marked his countenance. Where once he had been strong and muscular, he was now little more than skin and bone, the former of which hung on him loosely and the latter protruding prominently as he laid there, every breath weaker than the last. His face, which had so little time ago it seemed been bright and beatific, with rosy undertones and sharp observant eyes, was now ashen and sweat soaked, graying with ill health. His eyes, dull and glazed with fatigue and pain, pled fruitlessly for a release which death would not yet bring.

The friar saw the rage that lit the boy’s eyes which the child could not disguise. Though he tried to call for help, being at the mercy of a boy he had tortured cruelly in the not too distant past, he could force no more than a whisper and a blood soaked gurgle beyond his throat. He pled with the boy as best he could, pathetically murmuring as he tried to drift off to sleep; an empty justification that did no more to assuage his heavy heart than it did to still the hate that fluttered madly in the boy’s breast,

Always tried to do right by you, Bowen.

The boy leaned close to the friar’s ear and uttered the phrase the man had spoken to him in the cold watches of the night though his voice was cold and flat and lacked conviction.

Peace be with you and may God Almighty keep you, friar. And then he moved back from the monk a space lest the fetid odor of death and decay become overpowering, smiling a black, dead smile that never reached his eyes.

The monk, who had shamelessly and rather openly hated Bowen for the longest time, still sought refuge in his twisted, misguided faith. With his voice fairly dripping woeful remorse, he whispered hoarsely, Forgive me, child.

Bowen leaned forward and spoke again, fury adding force and finality to his voice. Ask your God for forgiveness, monk, for you will not receive any from me, as I have none to give.

The friar gasped weakly in pathetic outrage which brought on another agonizing spasm of coughing; though this time he would not recover. When the spasm subsided, he could not catch his breath and with a rattling wheeze, the monk breathed his last while Bowen watched quietly. When several minutes had passed in which the friar did not breathe and the light left his now lifeless eyes, and to the accompaniment of the smell of the dead monk, Bowen quickly left the bedchamber to fetch a priest that he might give the last rites.

Bowen knew he would be whipped for letting the friar die even though it was not within his scope to heal the man, but try as he might, he could not regret it. He had months ago become, if not immune, then inured to the pain of the beatings he was dealt. Much to the fury of the monks at the monastery he took each lash of the whip with neither tears nor so much as a whimper of pain. This prompted the monks to increase the number of lashes that he was given to nightly beatings at twenty lashes each time, though it did no good. Bowen would lock himself into the corner of his mind and smile a carefully cultivated, emotionless smile while his eyes opened wide and he stared coldly at each monk in turn. When they began to fear him, their punishments had become more violent and they began to seek any superficial excuse to whip the devil out of him, as they stated it. Once, he recalled, he had been set to scrubbing the floors. One among the monks had decided that the stones had taken too long to dry and Bowen was summarily whipped for lack of diligence in applying himself to his work.

Now the friar he had been charged to care for was dead and though the rest of the monks had known it was inevitable, Bowen would be punished anyway. They whipped him time and again in the name of God. They spoke among themselves of the infinite mercies of a loving God, but Bowen had yet to see evidence of it. He hated their God as virulently as he hated the monks that lived in this monastery.

He pushed these thoughts aside, however, as he arrived at the door to the chapel. He quietly opened it, only to come face to face not with one of the monks, but with a young traveling priest who had been passing through the area and had recently stopped at the monastery pleading hospitality and rest.

Father Jacob was not like the others, Bowen had noticed immediately upon his introduction to the priest. With a generosity that had taken him completely aback when Bowen had prostrated himself in front of Father Jacob as he had been taught to do, the priest had laughed softly and insisted on helping Bowen to his feet. When Bowen had looked at Father Jacob askance he had seen the warm light of kindness in the Father’s eyes and had smiled his first unsure smile in what must have been months. He immediately followed that action by ducking his head forlornly and awaiting his chastisement for daring to look upon the visage of the priest.

The stinging blow to the head that he expected never fell, though he gritted his teeth and clenched his eyes shut and nearly asked the father to get it over with. Once Bowen gathered his courage and chanced a look at the priest, since for what reason he could not fathom he had taken an immediate liking to the Father and wanted to please him, he saw no anger on the man’s face. He found instead an honesty and a curiosity that matched his own. The priest looked down at Bowen with a gentle question in his eyes that he did not voice and that Bowen dared not answer. Instead, the child bowed low with as much pomp and flourish as he was capable and reverently took Father Jacob’s hand in both of his own that he might kiss it. Greetings, Father, he murmured. I trust you will find the accommodations and the hospitality to your liking?

The priest’s slow smile had begun at his lips and traveled to his eyes to light them up as he had also bowed his head in acknowledgment of Bowen and said with the greatest possible gravity, I find myself most pleased with the hospitality, my child. You have my thanks.

It had been at that point that one of the monks had interjected with a serenely spoken statement that nevertheless carried with it an unmistakable threat. Pay no attention to the child, Father. He is naught but an orphan and a ghastly devil of a child. And then he’d turned to Bowen and said, On about your work, boy.

Bowen had felt the force of the friar’s gaze boring into the top of his head with the certainty of the pronounced punishment that would follow quickly and he murmured, Yes, friar, in all haste. He had turned to walk away, eyes downcast and heart pounding.

He had not done so quickly enough however, and he had overheard the priest telling the monk, Delightful child, is he not?

The monk had snorted sarcastically at that question and stated flatly, He’s an atrocious liar, that one. Don’t believe even one word that passes his lips. To do so is to consort with the devil himself.

Father Jacob’s voice had taken on a challenging edge when he had calmly returned, Do not the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ state plainly that we are to love the children for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven, friar?

The monk had been cowed. He mumbled, Indeed those are His words. I must away, Father, I have my own work that must be done. And with that he had beat a hasty retreat but the scowl on his face had lingered there for the remainder of the day.

Now, Father Jacob lightly cleared his throat and snapped Bowen back to the present and the boy stammered, P-please come quickly, Father, for brother Francis has died. And then Bowen turned to lead the way to the room Francis had occupied for all the years that he’d been in residence at the monastery, but which now smelled of death and hung heavy with the weighted pall of the dearly departed.

The Father wasted no time performing the last rites over the dead monk. His face had blanched noticeably even in the gloom of the chamber when he’d been assaulted by the putrescence that greeted him. He’d coughed lightly, broken into a sweat, and quickly finished his duty, looking distinctly nauseated.

When he exited the chamber, closing the door firmly behind him and turning to leave, he took one step before he halted and cast his eyes upon the boy staying quietly in the shadows and trying not to draw attention to himself. Looking down at Bowen, Father Jacob said quietly, Come child, walk with me. I must speak with you.

Swallowing his trepidation with an effort, for if the monks saw him walking with the priest a beating would surely follow, he nonetheless did as he was bidden and fell into step beside Father Jacob. Just because he was used to the agony of the lashings he was dealt with casual cruelty didn’t necessarily mean that he looked forward to them, but he pushed his angst by the wayside and concentrated on what the Father said.

It occurs to me, child, that it would be to your benefit if I told the monks that Francis died in my company. Wouldn’t you agree?

Bowen was so startled by the statement he tripped over his own foot, dropping to his knee and bruising it painfully on the stone of the floor. Father? He asked softly, not sure he had heard correctly.

Kneeling to help the child right himself, Father Jacob nonetheless patiently explained, I know ‘tis a lie, and a nasty one at that, though I know not what it changes. Brother Francis will still be dead and he will be sorely grieved by all save one little boy. I have reason to think that it is all in the will of God that I tell the monks that he passed whilst in my presence bare minutes after I had performed the last rites for him as he had felt they were needed and sent you to fetch me. And then the Father’s head cocked slightly to one side as he studied Bowen. Are you set to trip over my foot now, or do you plan to fall over your own jaw child? Close your mouth.

Bowen’s jaw snapped closed and in a breathless moment of stark hilarity he realized that twice he had come face to face with Father Jacob only to have to be picked up when he’d found himself face to face with the floor. Biting his lip to keep from laughing, which would be an egregious blunder for him inside the walls of the monastery, he nonetheless answered sincerely to the priest’s questioning look.

If you feel it is the will of God Almighty, Father, I will certainly do as you have bidden me.

Had the Father heard the crack of the whip in the weeks since he had been here? Bowen wondered at that quietly even as he also wondered if Father Jacob had seen the cold disregard with which the monks treated him and sought only to ease the burden on the slight shoulders of an orphaned child.

See that you do, my child. Father Jacob answered quietly with a slight smile at the readiness of Bowen’s agreement. Then with a mild frown of consternation when he noticed that Bowen had become keenly absorbed in the look of his own toes, he asked softly, What troubles you, child?

Fearing a cold rebuke that followed so closely on the heels of what Bowen could only describe as an act of supreme kindness and generosity, he nonetheless cleared his throat and spoke softly, I have chores to see to, Father. Begging your forgiveness.

Go, my child, answered Father Jacob as understanding dawned in his eyes. Peace be with you.

Humbled and enormously relieved, Bowen grinned at the priest and spoke the words though they held a hard edge with all that he had experienced at the hands of