Before Romeo and Juliet

11. Intermezzo I, Part III

The Friar was lost again. Lost in his own thoughts. Like the scattering of seeds across a field, some musings took root and grew into long walks that stretched from daybreak past nightfall. Others were tossed to the wind and forgotten. Often they were of matters of science, the idiosyncrasies of the honeybee was a favorite or the medicinal preparations of the elder flower. There was the making of lists - favorite homilies (his own), subjects to explore (religious and scientific both), letters to write (many) - and, more than all the subjects he pondered, the friar was often lost to simple, inexplicable reverie.

His penchant for casting his mind adrift, to moor wherever it chose, made Fratello Lorenzo a puzzle to his fellow priests. A puzzle they found to be at turns curious, wearisome and invaluable. He often incited ire for missing vespers because he was studying a flower or gazing at stars, and yet many were the blessings he received for saving lives with a tincture or predicting a frost before it lay claim to an orchard. He was routinely sent away by his bishop for the dual purpose of increasing his knowledge of the natural world and lessening the chance that he would insult a visiting nobleman, as he did when he remarked that a Marchese showed signs of Saint Fiacre's illness. Very few people ever understood what could be so entrancing about tracking the celestial journey of a cloud or distinguishing the markings of birds nesting in the eaves. What everyone understood, without question, was that Fratello Lorenzo had a gift.

Such was his gift that he could see things others could not, like the young woman who crossed the snow-blanketed garden again and again one morning to fetch kindling from the woodshed. While anyone else might have seen a dutiful Oblate fetching wood to tend to the abbey's fires, Fratello Lorenzo could see that the girl never once brought wood anywhere near a hearth. He also noticed how the girl looked about nervously as she came and went, and that she tried to hide the kindling in her sleeves. There was also the matter of her hem, which was tattered. His curiosity tickled, Fratello Lorenzo followed the girl the next time she emerged from the shed to find out just what she was up to.

He stepped from the warmth of the dispensary into the cold light of day and followed the girl across the snow blanketed garden. He traced her steps along the cloister walk and through the kitchen, where he witnessed her lifting two dried figs from the table and slipping them under her tunic. The girl is a thief! he thought just before he helped himself to one, too. Out of the kitchen and through the refectory, Fratello Lorenzo silently followed the girl until she entered the dorter. This is where Fratello paused. The Dorter was the most cloistered area of the Abbey and men were not allowed to enter, and yet his curiosity bid him continue. He caught sight of the girl just as she entered a cell.
When he stepped in the doorway of the cell he was surprised to see his apprentice, Maria Grazia, and the thief erupting into laughter. He went unnoticed as the girl emptied her sleeves of kindling before handing Maria Grazia one of the stolen figs.

"Look! Figs for our troubles," whispered the thief.

"What trouble could be greater than thievery?" Fratello Lorenzo announced.

"I am no thief," said the girl, with a mixture of surprise, defiance and an ever so slight tinge of guilt.

"Fratello Lorenzo," Maria Grazia gasped.

"Maria Grazia, what is happening here?" He asked.

Maria Grazia paused for a moment and then replied, none too convincingly, "Nothing, Fratello."

"Maria Grazia, you are a terrible liar. It is one of your best qualities. Do not lose it." It was then that he noticed something on the pallet in the corner of the cell. "What is that?"

He took a step closer and saw that it was a miniature Christmas crib, fashioned out of twigs, twine and cloth, dyed yellow. This explained at once the stolen kindling and the tattered hem. But what of the paint dye, Fratello wondered. "Ah, yes," Fratello realized, "Indian saffron."