2007 Christy Award for Best Historical (nominee)
I am a coward.
Were I not, I would have died this morning on the Tor with the others, but I fled and hid. The Abbot told me I should be gone to Wales by now, but I hadn't even the courage for that. My father spoke truer than he knew. He said I would never amount to anything as a monk, and he was right.
I close my eyes and mutter the prayers of protection for the dying.
. . . From the ancient enemy: free and defend their souls, O Lord. . . .
Across the moors three gallows loom atop the Tor. Three bodies swing in the cold November dawn. I draw my cloak about me. The bundle that is my treasure presses against my side, safely wrapped in the wool of my old habit. I try again to pray, but it is the warm baritone of the priest in my old parish in Wales, that fills my mind. More than a year has passed since he chanted those prayers for my mother. The pain still runs deep, and it is for her that I weep.
* * *
The ancient olivewood drinking bowl that young Colin finds in the treasury of Glastonbury Abbey, was disregarded as worthless wood by King Henry VIII's men when they inventoried the abbey's treasures. But Father Dunstan, the tortured prior who preaches forgiveness, treasures it. Father Bede, as demanding as the hated father from whom Colin has fled, covets it. Abbot Whiting finds in it the courage to face his enemy, even as monasteries are being dismantled all over sixteenth century England. Will Colin find the personal faith and sense of worth he seeks? Can he ever forgive his father... or himself?
Genre: Inspirational
Were I not, I would have died this morning on the Tor with the others, but I fled and hid. The Abbot told me I should be gone to Wales by now, but I hadn't even the courage for that. My father spoke truer than he knew. He said I would never amount to anything as a monk, and he was right.
I close my eyes and mutter the prayers of protection for the dying.
. . . From the ancient enemy: free and defend their souls, O Lord. . . .
Across the moors three gallows loom atop the Tor. Three bodies swing in the cold November dawn. I draw my cloak about me. The bundle that is my treasure presses against my side, safely wrapped in the wool of my old habit. I try again to pray, but it is the warm baritone of the priest in my old parish in Wales, that fills my mind. More than a year has passed since he chanted those prayers for my mother. The pain still runs deep, and it is for her that I weep.
* * *
The ancient olivewood drinking bowl that young Colin finds in the treasury of Glastonbury Abbey, was disregarded as worthless wood by King Henry VIII's men when they inventoried the abbey's treasures. But Father Dunstan, the tortured prior who preaches forgiveness, treasures it. Father Bede, as demanding as the hated father from whom Colin has fled, covets it. Abbot Whiting finds in it the courage to face his enemy, even as monasteries are being dismantled all over sixteenth century England. Will Colin find the personal faith and sense of worth he seeks? Can he ever forgive his father... or himself?
Genre: Inspirational
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Used availability for LeAnne Hardy's Glastonbury Tor