Sarum

by Edward Rutherfurd

  For this, he knew very well, was the deadly sin of lust.

  But if only his sin had been his greatest woe! For now Osmund discovered an even more uncomfortable affliction, as a new fear began to torment him: he started to live in terror of being found out.

  For his lust was so strong, he could not believe that others did not see it. He began to look nervously at his fellow masons, searching in their eyes for signs that they were laughing at him. If someone laughed, he turned abruptly. At times he even thought he heard their voices calling: “Osmund lusts after Bartholomew’s daughter – lusts after her day and night!” At home, he wondered that his wife did not accuse him, and he was surprised that the village children still clustered happily round him in the street and asked him to carve their models. One day, when he found himself face to face with Bartholomew, he discovered to his horror that he could hardly look at him for embarrassment.

  Worse was to come. In the first week of October, just after Michaelmas, he was standing by the transept where the great pillars of Purbeck marble reached up into the tower, when he saw the girl come into the nave. Thinking he was alone, he moved back so that he could watch her without being seen. As she made her way quietly up the nave, he could hear her humming to herself and as she crossed towards the entrance to the cloisters he watched the muted shafts of sunlight catch her hair. In doing so, she passed only ten yards from where he was standing, and he thought, but it must have been his imagination, that he could smell the delicate scent of her young body. As she went into the cloisters, a wild, irrational thought filled his mind and he almost shouted aloud: “I must have her; I must have this girl if I die.”

  With this idea taking over his very soul, he moved away from his hiding place into the empty nave.

  But it was not empty.

  In the opposite transept he suddenly saw a single, dark figure, motionless as a statue, staring at him.

  He halted.

  Canon Stephen Portehors, very thin, leaning on a stick, his hair white but his dark eyes still piercing and terrible, continued to stare at him fixedly, seeing all.

  No word was spoken, but the trembling mason was sure: he knew.

  The next morning he noticed that a new figure had just been completed in the archway to the chapter house. It was the cool, flowing figure of Lady Purity, subduing Lust at her feet; and when he saw this he hung his head in shame.

  From that day, he evolved a new discipline; he began to walk like a monk, with his head bowed. By keeping his eyes always fixed on the ground or on his work and never looking up or from side to side, for the next three months until Christmas, the mason kept the deadly sin of lust at bay.

  Putting the distraction behind him, Osmund found a renewed pleasure in his work. Each scene of the relief, which would finally form a continuous frieze around the chapter house wall, consisted of a broad, curving V between the arches opening out into a rectangle above, and this allowed the artist many opportunities for expressive arrangements. The first scene, which began on the left of the entrance, showed the figure of God parting the clouds as He emerged to create light; the second scene showed the bearded figure of God in flowing robes, raising His right hand to create the firmament, and the subsequent scenes, showing the other days of Creation, were all completed to Osmund’s satisfaction. Until he came to the sixth. This however was far more complex, for he had to depict both the Creation of the beasts, and of Adam and Eve, which required a difficult interweaving of forms that for the moment defeated him.

  After several attempts he put it aside and completed the next scene, a far simpler one, in which God, depicted in a lozenge, rested on the seventh day.

  But now he ran into another technical difficulty. For the design called for another five scenes on the story of Adam and Eve; and here, no matter what he tried, he could not get the figures right: his Adam was wooden, and Eve seemed to elude him completely.

  The problem was an important one.

  “How can I depict him – who must be every man? And how can I capture her?” he puzzled. “She must be a pure maiden, and yet the mother of all men; she is first innocent, yet she is the temptress who led Adam to his original sin: pure woman, lascivious whore, wife and mother.” The contradictions, which were so necessary to express the first man and woman, seemed beyond his art. Certainly, as he looked at the work of his colleagues on the Virtues and Vices, with their standardized grace and their almost comic depictions of evil, these reliefs called for a subtlety far beyond any of the other sculptures in the great church.

  So finally, with a sigh, he put these carvings aside also and went on to the three more straightforward scenes representing Cain and Abel.

  It was in this way that, oblivious to all distractions, even forgetting the girl Cristina, he laboured at the carving until Christmas.

  On Christmas Eve he saw her again. It was his own fault. On leaving the church on the evening before the great festival he had relaxed and allowed his gaze to leave the floor. And as he walked happily down the nave, the first thing he saw was the girl. She was kneeling before a little side altar where the candles were burning; her hair fell loosely down her back and her face was turned up towards the candles. It looked like the face of an angel.

  He stared at her. Once more, as strongly as ever before, his lust rose like a wave. He was seized with an overpowering urge to take the girl’s face in his hands and kiss her.

  “Temptress,” he muttered angrily, “disguised as an angel.” And he rushed out of the cathedral and made his way back to Avonsford, vowing he would never look up from his work again.

  In the new year, Osmund began the story of Noah. He was pleased with the little ark he carved, bobbing on the waves, and with the next scene of the drunkenness of Noah. By the month of March he had completed fine scenes of the Tower of Babel, which he made to look like the old castle on the hill at Sarum, two scenes from the life of Abraham, and the splendid carving of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He showed them to Robert and the canons and received their delighted approval. Daily he was growing more confident of his techniques.

  “Soon,” he hoped, “I shall be able to do those scenes from the Garden of Eden.”

  On March 25,1266, a wonderful event took place in Sarum.

  For on that day, after twenty-six years of labour and a total expenditure of the stupendous sum of forty-two thousand marks, the main body of the new cathedral was finally completed. It was, without doubt, one of the most perfect examples of early gothic architecture in Europe.

  Some eight years before, at a splendid ceremony, the king himself had ridden over from his hunting lodge at Clarendon to see the consecration of the great building. But still there were years of work to do before the interior was finally completed. Now however, every last piece of decorative masonry was finished and painted, the huge leaded windows were all installed, and there was nothing to be added to the long, gracious vista within.

  In the late afternoon, a solemn high mass was held at which all the masons with their families and half the town attended. Afterwards, in the market place, there was to be a huge feast.

  The sun was already sinking over the river when Osmund led his family to their place in the crowded nave. The church was full. Some two thousand people were gathered in the nave alone. His son was at his side, and the boy’s eyes were wide, for he had never seen such a great concourse of people before.

  As the hour approached, the congregation fell silent; the setting sun was now flashing through the great window at the west end, sending huge shafts of light, dappled with the colours of the glass, up the long aisle to the choir screen and the inner sanctum of the choir beyond.

  Slowly the light faded. In the half shadow, the huge arches of grey stone loomed silently over the people, and the boy reached up for his father’s hand as he gazed, awestruck, into the cavernous spaces that led towards the distant high altar.

  Now junior priests rustled about, lighting candles with their long tapers. There were huge banks of c
andles, by the pillars in the nave, in the transepts, in the arcaded galleries and clerestory high above, along the line of the choir screen and in the choir beyond. For fully ten minutes they went about their work, and as they did so, and the light outside faded, the interior of the great cathedral was gradually transformed. The thousands of candles first glimmered, then glowed, and now set the whole fabric shining with light. And when Osmund looked up and saw the full effect of what the masons’ work had accomplished his face broke into a smile of joy. For the soaring pillars and the tiers of arches gleamed with light. Red, gold, green and blue – the dazzling colours rose from the floor to the decorated vaults above and the windows shone with the reflection of the candlelight. High in the air, the faces he had carved and others had painted peeped down cheerfully at the folk below.

  Little Edward tugged at his hand.

  “Is this the feast?” he whispered.

  And indeed, the mason thought, the church was, when fully lit, like a vast banqueting hall.

  But now the west doors were thrown open and a great procession began to enter the cathedral and move slowly up the aisle. It was led by the choirboys who carried long candles and chanted as they went. Behind them came the priests, several dozen of them, their long white robes hissing on the polished stone floor, their deep voices intoning the raw, majestic harmonies of the plainsong chant. Canons and deacons swept by, and last, accompanied by two boys who held his train and by the priests who carried the sacraments, came the tall, stately figure of the bishop. He walked slowly. Over his robes he wore a magnificent cope, embroidered with gold and silver and encrusted with precious stones that glowed dully in the light. His fine ascetic face looked neither to right nor left, and his height was further accentuated by the tall mitre with its silver cross that he wore on his head. In his hand he carried the long ceremonial crook of his office, its curved head looping elegantly like the neck and head of a swan.

  Solemnly he strode by, up the church’s great arcade of stone. The people knelt as he passed. Finally he went through the choir screen into the inner sanctum.

  It was just as he reached this point and the voices of the choir echoed from the distant altar, that Osmund saw Cristina. She was a little in front of him, on the other side of the aisle, standing beside her father. At the moment when the bishop entered the sanctum, the great west doors were closed, and as she looked round to watch this, her eyes rested on Osmund. He thought she smiled before she turned away.

  Once again, his fever rose.

  Soon the mass was in progress. Its soothing murmur and its distant chant spread their timeless comfort over the congregation. But to Osmund, it was a torture.

  “Agnus dei . . .” the chant echoed. Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. He tried to think of the Lamb, led to the slaughter, the great sacrifice of the Christian rite.

  “Agnus dei . . .”

  But another figure insistently presented itself before his eyes. He tried to concentrate.

  The moment of the transubstantiation came. The bell rang as the priest presented the body and blood of Christ to His people.

  And it must, Osmund knew, be the Devil himself who at that moment sent him a different vision, a vision that refused to be dispelled, of the girl’s body, naked, arched and trembling on the high altar.

  At the feast that night in the market place, where the oxen turned on huge spits and the crowd sat at the long trestle tables that stretched for fifty yards, the mason sat with his family in silence. His children chattered; even his wife’s face was, for once, wreathed in contented smiles. But Osmund did not join in. Instead he sat slumped, conscious only of the terrible lust, so urgent that it made him want to cry out, which afflicted him. In an agony of despair and rage, he sullenly gorged himself with food and drink in the hope that another sin, the sin of gluttony, might drive this greater demon out. He continued until, bloated and fuddled, he slipped off the bench into oblivion.

  The crisis came in June.

  Since the completion of the cathedral, Osmund had finished the scenes of Lot turning into a pillar of salt and Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. He was pleased with these because the fluidity and natural expressiveness of the figures that he strove for was at last beginning to come. It was with a sense of optimism that he now began work on the story of Isaac and Jacob.

  The spring that year was particularly fine and warm. As he made his way through the lush Avon valley Osmund felt a sense of excitement, a tingling anticipation that he had not known for many years; and just as he had when he carved the roof boss as a young man, he felt that something of the rich and fertile spirit of the place where the five rivers met was showing through in his work. Sinner that I am, he considered, God has let me see some light in the darkness. And he went to his work more contented.

  It was a warm morning in June; the valley was lush; a cuckoo was singing. He had walked about a mile from Avonsford when the encounter took place.

  On the right of the road at this point there was a wood, and through it a winding path led down to the path by the river. It was just as he drew level with the opening to the path that he stopped abruptly and stared.

  For what he saw was clearly a vision. There seemed no other explanation for it. And he knew it must have been sent by the Devil.

  Quickly he crossed himself. The vision laughed.

  The apparition that the Devil had sent had taken the form of the girl Cristina. She was leaning against a tree and she wore only a light shift tied at the waist and open at the front, so that it barely covered her breasts. Her hair was loose, and she was staring at him with a look of amusement. He crossed himself again, and then pinched himself to make sure he was not asleep.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she enquired as she watched his nervous gestures.

  He stared at her. What new punishment had the Devil prepared for him?

  “Who are you?” he asked hoarsely.

  “You know me, Osmund Mason,” she replied with a smile. “I’m Cristina.”

  Unable to help himself he walked over to her and gazed at her. She seemed real enough, but if so, then what was she doing here?

  “What do you want?”

  She shrugged.

  “Maybe I came to see you. I knew you’d come by.”

  He knew he should go at once, whatever this encounter meant; whether he had fallen prey to a vision or the girl was real it made no difference. But he did not.

  His breath was coming short as he stared at her. It was she who broke the silence.

  “I’ve seen you watching me.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” He felt himself blushing furiously, but he could not move.

  “Yes you do,” she taunted gently. “Been watching me ever since last summer. Every time I go through the church. Seen you go by my house too. Quite a few times.”

  Now the poor mason flushed scarlet. He opened his mouth to protest but the girl broke into a soft laugh.

  “I don’t mind.” And she smiled: not the smile of a child, he noted, but that of an experienced woman; her eyes ran up and down his stocky frame. She shifted her position, pushing her legs out so that she was leaning back even further against the tree, and her blue eyes looked straight into his.

  Then, to his astonishment, she said calmly and quietly: “You can kiss me if you want.”

  He stared at her. She was no older than his own daughter – he knew; yet now it was he, the master mason, who felt like a foolish boy. What game was she playing, he asked himself, what witchcraft? He must leave her at once.

  But still he could not.

  She did not move; she gazed up at him. Her face seemed so soft, and her eyes had a look of hurt, almost reproach in them.

  “Not if you don’t want to,” she murmured.

  He stood very still. The wood seemed unnaturally silent. Then, hardly knowing what he was doing, whether he was awake or whether, after all, this was some dream sent by the Devil, the mason forgot all caution, stepped forward, lowered his
large head to kiss her lips, and was astonished as the child threw her soft arms around his neck and pulled him to her.

  How sweet her lips tasted. Her young body pressed urgently against him and the little mason trembled.

  In an ecstasy of excitement, he felt himself falling to the ground with her.

  Moments later, he did not even protest as, still murmuring softly, she began to tug at his clothes. Osmund the Mason forgot his fear and caution. With a cry he rose, tore his clothes off, and flushing this time with pride, stood before her naked. Now, he knew, now he would have her at last. His hands reached out.

  But suddenly, with a little peal of laughter, she slipped from his grasp and darted away from him. He stared at her in astonishment.

  Ten feet away, she turned, and he saw that she was smiling.

  “Catch me, then,” she cried. And before he could protest, she was running lightly away down the path between the trees.

  His stocky, hirsute body with its small paunch bounded along the path behind her. For fifty yards he followed, conscious only of the twists in the path, the flickering light through the trees and the fact that her form, in its single white shift, was only a few tantalising yards ahead of him. The leaves and branches flicked into his face; his feet stumbled over the hard roots that lay across the path; but he hardly noticed them as he panted forward, his round face and his grey eyes shining.

  They were getting near the river. But before reaching it the path passed through an open glade of grass about thirty yards long. That, he thought, was where he would catch her, and as they reached it, he hurled himself forward.

  She was ahead of him, almost at the far end of the glade. She had stopped. She was turning. His face lit up in a smile of triumph.