The Treasures of Heaven (standard:drama, 2006 words)
Author: Gavin J. Carr	Added: Oct 05 2008	Views/Reads: 3371/2182	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
It is the eighth century and on an island monastery off the west coast of Britain, Matthew, a young monk, must make a frightening choice. The Sea Wolves are coming - vicious raiders that will stop at nothing in their mission to plunder and kill. Mat

Matthew swallows the gold coin, squeezing his eyes shut as it slips
gradually down his throat. 

It is cold and hard. Rough cut and unfiled. A crudely shaped sovereign
the size of a tunic button. It hurts as he swallows it, slowly 
travelling the length of his oesophagus the way a bird egg will travel 
the lithe length of an adder's body. 

“...No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and
love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. 
Ye cannot serve God and mammon...” 

Standing at the dais reading aloud from scripture, Brother Simon's voice
is neutral, devoid of irony. “...Therefore I say unto you, Take no 
thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor 
yet for your body, what ye shall put on...” 

The westerly wind blew spray and the smell of the ocean through the
window of the monastery. He can hear the calls of seabirds like the 
cries of children and the distant boom hiss of the waves as they lap 
the loose shingle of the shore. 

“...Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap,
nor gather into barns...” 

The coin has reached his stomach. He fancies he can hear it clink as it
comes to rest, joining the sixteen other sovereigns he has swallowed 
that morning. 

“...yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than
they?” 

The Abbot turns his shale grey gaze in his direction. He points to the
table in front of him, grease stained and ring marked with the ghost of 
past meals. On it now is the last supper. Three leather sacks. Their 
mouths slack and open, spilling gold coins over the scarred and pitted 
surface. 

He picks up another coin and turns it over slowly. It winks at him in
the silvery, rain-washed light. He puts it in his mouth and swallows. 
It is cold and hard. Rough cut and unfiled. 

*** 

His father knelt in the dust of the street and kissed the priest's
out-stretched hand. 

The land they worked was Church land, but no easier to till for that.
There had been a bad harvest and people were hungry. 

“If we give what little we have then there will be no grain for next
year's harvest,” his father had told the priest. 

The man had looked around the village as if weighing its worth. The
houses of wattle and thatch were bare of ornamentation or splendour. 
The people stood outside in the summer heat and bowed their heads, 
waiting. Somewhere a child cried. 

“The poor you will always have with you,” said the priest. His fat, red
tongue tasting the air. “Render unto Caesar the things which are 
Caesar's.” They took half the grain and six of the village children. 
Because his father had been the headman he was given a great honour. 
Matthew would make a fine oblate. 

*** 

Outside they can hear raised voices. There is argument and laughter. It
is followed by a scream, a keening that peters out into nothingness, 
freezing the marrow of those within the monastery. 

“...A-And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the
f-field, how the grow; they toil not, n-neither do they spin: And yet I 
say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like 
one of these...” 



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