by Geoff Smith
He paused to take another great swallow of beer, and much affronted I said to him:
‘It is not so. The Church is the instrument that will bind nations together in a new and enlightened age…’
‘My arse!’ he growled at me. ‘You only spout that horseshit, boy, to try and make people like me sound uncivilised. And don’t look so offended. By the gods, your sort are always so eager to be offended.’
Now Cadroc rose to his feet, his expression at once transfigured with such wrath that he seemed about to lose control as his hand reached towards his sword. He stood for a moment, glaring at Edric, who shrank back at the sight of this fearful transformation.
‘I will remind you,’ Cadroc hissed, his face turning white, ‘that it was your pagan forbears who first took these lands from my Christian people!’ Then the astonishing moment was over, and Cadroc turned his back to stalk away and take a seat at the opposite end of the hall.
‘You monks are all the same,’ Edric began to mutter. ‘All humility and mildness at first: how the Christ-god will protect us and win our battles for us if we worship him. But soon it all changes, and he turns into a monster who will condemn our souls to be tortured forever if we don’t do exactly what you tell us. Christians say we no longer have need of our old seers and soothsayers, and this at least is true, since now we must only predict the worst possible outcome in all things to be proved right every time.’ At this I rose indignantly to follow Cadroc; but Edric’s hand shot out to firmly grasp my wrist. ‘Wait!’ he said, all his drunken belligerence rising, ‘and I will tell you the truth about your Christian Church. In Kent I owned land which had been in my family for generations. But one day, in the beer hall on my lord’s estate, I killed a man – a rich thegn’s son – in self-defence. The man was drunk and out of control, and I had witnesses to swear oaths that my actions were justified. But his family was influential, and soon one of the king’s judges – some doddering old thegn – came to hold an investigation, accompanied by his legal “assistant”, a little weasel of a Frankish cleric. Throughout the hearing this man barely allowed the judge to speak without first whispering his instructions to him, while he studied the writings on his many pieces of parchment. They hardly listened to my defence or my witnesses, but soon returned a verdict that I had been found guilty of an unlawful killing. There was uproar among my supporters.
‘ “Since when has it been unlawful for a man to defend his own life?” I demanded.
‘Now the Frank weasel stood to address the court directly.
‘ “It should be known to all,” he said, “that the king has lately been engaged in revising this country’s law code.” Which meant of course that the king’s Christian officials had been doing so in his name. The more corrupt the government the more plentiful the laws. “It is now the law that each case of this kind must be decided on close examination of the facts. For too long the excuse of a man’s honour has been given to justify these drunken brawls. It is the view of the court that this fight, and a young man’s death, might easily have been avoided, and now an example must be made.”
‘ “But we were not told of these laws!” my own lord now objected.
‘ “That is not relevant to the case,” the weasel answered him. “If you disagree with the judgement, lord, you are free to make an appeal to the king. But must I remind you that these are the king’s own laws?”
‘I doubt the king knew any more of them than we did. But now I was told I must pay the dead man’s blood price to compensate his family, along with another fine to the king and his officers. And I was informed that under the new laws these fines had been greatly increased to serve as a deterrent. The sum demanded was simply ruinous. I knew that the value of my entire estate – all I owned – was unlikely to cover it. At best I would be reduced to slavery. And if I could not pay in full then the dead man’s powerful kin would claim the right of a blood feud to seek vengeance and kill me. So I fled the court and took my horse and rode away into exile. But even as I ran I knew the truth of it. They were content to let me go, for they were not interested in me. Or in justice. What they wanted was my land. Kent is a small kingdom and land there is in short supply, but the Christians are always hungry to acquire it. What better way to take over a country than twist the law to condemn and outlaw native men of the old religion and steal their lands? So at last I ended up here, in this place of outcasts, and must live impoverished while some fat abbot or bishop holds everything my family ever owned. Ah! Fate goes where fate will.’
As he uttered this pagan proverb Edric’s eyes grew blank and his head sank down, beer dribbling from the corner of his mouth as he relaxed his grip on me. I tore my arm free, then went to join Cadroc as I found myself becoming furious at these shocking accusations, for while I knew that individual churchmen were sometimes prone to human failings, I would not accept that the Church itself was corrupt. Surely it was the case that here was a guilty man so deeply angry and resentful that his words were only an embittered distortion of the truth?
Cadroc sat drawing deep breaths as it seemed he was still fighting to contain his mercurial anger. My own infuriation now seemed nearly as great as his, and I sat shaking while my mind felt exhausted and in a state of disorder after the tumultuous events of the day. Feelings of shame at my susceptibility to the shaman’s trickery, combined with my outrage at Edric’s drunken bile, were finally too much to endure. At last Cadroc looked up at me and said:
‘You must forgive my outburst. I know it is my duty to bring the Word to such men and keep control in the face of their blind obstinacy. But it is a weakness in me that sometimes I lose patience with them. A fault I strive to address.’
‘I understand your anger!’ I said. ‘You came here to protect and deliver these people, but they show no gratitude. And you cannot reason with a drunkard.’
‘The truth is,’ he went on, ‘that my mission is for now my only concern. I have told you that my battle against this malevolent spirit is also a crusade against the blasphemies of paganism. The demon seems to me like a foul incarnation of the pagan soul itself: an outward manifestation of all its spiritual sickness and depravity. Do you know the heathens believe in something called a group soul? It is supposedly a merging in the afterworld of their spirits with those of their ancestors into a single mass consciousness.’ His words reminded me of the strange sense of oneness I had experienced among the crowd at the shaman’s healing. ‘A fancy name for Hell!’ Cadroc sniffed. ‘But to succeed in my task will be to bring the true Faith of God to these people and save them from such grievous error. Yet my battle is also what will define me. Do you understand this? To gaze into the abyss, into the face of darkness itself, is the greatest test of a man – to pit himself against the power of Satan, always knowing that his soul might break. It is only there he will discover the truth of himself and learn the real measure of his faith.’
His eyes shone as he spoke, while I remembered my own failure of courage in the chamber of Lady Hild.
‘Yes,’ I said, at once inspired by his words. ‘You have it exactly. It is for that reason I knew I must go with you.’
‘But what now?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘After what you have seen and experienced, is it your wish to continue?’
‘Yes!’ I answered firmly. ‘I must go on. I see in your example much of the man I hope to become. And I certainly do not wish to be left behind in this ungodly place.’
‘So be it!’ he declared. ‘I will let the decision be yours. Tomorrow we seek the trail again, and I fear it will not be long before it presents itself. Now go to bed. We leave at dawn.’
I bade him goodnight, then rose and left him. But after intoning my prayers, as I lay in my alcove I found that sleep did not come easily, and I drowsed there fitfully while my half-conscious mind drifted into a welter of strange imaginings. I conceived as a living reality Cadroc’s allegory of a great pagan spirit made earthly and corporeal, grown savage and mad as the old faith slowly shrank away and died to cast i
t into the outer darkness, like the sinister masked figure of Winter in the spring festivals from my childhood or like the stories of the wild men consigned to their fastness in the remotest regions of the land.
Now I began to envisage this horror taking nightmare form, as there came to me a fleeting mental image that I stood and looked out across a night-darkened fen, and far away I saw something begin to stir and move deep beneath the earth, like a creature which was buried there alive, bursting upward as it tore itself out of the mire: an eldritch thing, mud-black, which fought and struggled to be darkly born into the waiting night. It appeared on the farthest edge of my senses, almost beyond the reach of my mind’s sight. But I watched distantly as it clawed its way out from the blackest depths to emerge into the mortal world with murderous intent and claim for itself the ancient tributes of blood which men would now deny it.
My mind froze as it looked upon its own terrible creation. But in a moment it was gone, the whole scene vanishing instantly as the balm of oblivion swept over me. Yet even as sleep gathered me into its dark embrace, and I knew my vision was the symbol of another reality, I also knew that what lurked deep in the swamp of my mind most surely had its grim and deathly counterpart in the living world beyond.
Chapter Eleven
I awoke with a start in the darkness, and looking up I saw one of the villagers standing outside my alcove, his figure illuminated by the dim glow of a burning rushlight.
‘You must come now,’ I heard him say. ‘One of our men from the missing party has come back. I fear he is the last survivor of a terrible attack.’
At once Cadroc and Aelfric were on their feet, and I rose to join them as we followed the messenger out into the main hall. From there we were led outside into the blackness before dawn, to one of the dwelling huts, where we found a group of village men gathered about the one who had returned. Among these men I saw the shaman, but I carefully avoided meeting his eyes as we entered the house. Cadroc began at once to question the wretched man, who was filthy with mud, gasping and deathly pale, his hand trembling uncontrollably as he tried to drink from a mug of beer. In a while he composed himself enough to speak and give us his account.
‘On the first day,’ he began, ‘we went deep into the marsh in search of fowl. Our hunting was poor, and when it grew late we thought to turn back, but then we say no – we are brave hunters who do not go in fear of tales of thyrs upon the fen. So we go to make camp for the night on wooded island of Weagar’s Ridge, and plan to hunt again next day. There we started a fire and cooked duck, and drank from our flasks of ale till late. We slept, and in the morning when we woke we set out again on our hunt. But then a great fog came, and it was not safe for us to make the journey home. So we returned to our camp on the island and built our fire again, and again we went to sleep, but soon I woke up and must go from the camp to piss. It is now the attack comes. I heard great noise and much screaming. My companions cried out to the gods, but it is no help for them. I looked back, but…’ here his face twisted with horror and shame ‘…there is a great fear upon me and I turned… and I ran. I heard that devil come after me, its footsteps pounding on the earth, and I rushed away far out into the marshes until I fell down exhausted to stay hidden. At last I rose up and fled, yet darkness came, and I lost my way and wandered far off, fearing always that the bogs would take me. Or the monster would find me. It is more by good fortune than intent that at last I find my way back home.’
‘But did you see what attacked?’ The shaman was first to speak. ‘What did you see? What was this thing that came in darkness?’
‘It did not come in darkness,’ the man replied simply, his eyes bulging. ‘It was the darkness! A giant thing made out of shadows. It was… the night come alive!’
At once Aelfric moved forward, wrapping his arms with great compassion about the shuddering man, and tightly embracing him.
‘Try to calm yourself, Eadwine, you are safe now,’ I heard him whisper, his face suddenly taut with a fierce grief and rage. ‘There was nothing you could have done. I know what it is you suffer!’
Then Cadroc said to Aelfric:
‘Do you know this place? The island of which he speaks?’
‘It lies a league or so to the north. But it will be dangerous to travel over the marsh while it is still in darkness…’
‘Damnation to the darkness!’ Cadroc spat. ‘We go now.’
‘We must go with you!’ One of the village men spoke up, a thickset fellow whose face was black with a seething fury. ‘Our kin was in that company.’
‘Prepare yourselves, and set out in full numbers at first light,’ Cadroc told him. ‘We must go on ahead, hard upon the demon’s trail.’
‘What of you?’ Aelfric said to me. ‘Have you still the stomach for this?’
‘Yes,’ I nodded, assuming a look of fortitude I did not feel at all. But my soul’s path was fixed, and I knew that for good or ill I could not turn from it. I must face my great fear and put my trust in God – and in the powers of Brother Cadroc. From the corner of my eye I was aware of the shaman, as I felt his disconcerting stare upon me. Then he looked up, as if about to speak. But he remained silent. His malign presence made me feel relieved to be leaving, in spite of the terrors that might await us out on the fens.
We three departed from Meretun, and Aelfric led us out into the darkened marshes, brandishing a blazing torch as he picked our way forward with care, even as Cadroc urged him on with ever greater impatience, impelled by an urgency that seemed at once desperate and almost beyond his power to control.
‘I go as fast as I dare!’ Aelfric snapped back, his good-humour seeming at last to have deserted him. It had rained during the night, making our route ever more winding and difficult: the ground awash with stretches of open water, the mud-flats potentially deadly. I looked about me over the shadowy fen as the first light crept in, but the dawn came on so dull and overcast it seemed scarcely less gloomy than the night. And slowly it felt to me that the weird, rain-swept landscape began to blur gradually before my eyes into something like the threshold to an unearthly realm, where worlds of flesh and spirit might meet and join as one. Again the darkness of my imagination was overcoming me, as I wondered how anything which stalked alone in this desolate wasteland could be merely human; and there came upon me a powerful sense of oppression and nervousness as I thought back to that monstrous image which had seemed to surface in my mind during the shaman’s ritual the day before. It began to feel as if I were being hunted and haunted by something deep within myself.
‘Is it all well with you?’ Aelfric asked me suddenly, perhaps noticing my look of uneasiness.
‘It is strange,’ I said, staring out across the bleak expanse of reeds and rushes that surrounded us. ‘This land is so wide and empty, and we are so alone here, but I feel always as if it closes upon me to stifle me. It is a place to confound the senses.’
‘The marsh has its moods,’ he answered, ‘and many will see in it the reflection of what is inside them.’
‘You have the soul of a bard!’ I told him, while I sought to master my growing anxiety.
As we moved onward the interminable mists swept over us, growing heavier as our route grew harder. Finally we approached the small island called Weagar’s Ridge, which loomed forebodingly over the murk-shrouded marshes ahead, as I saw thick tendrils of fog that crept eerily through the tangled branches of its trees like a giant spider’s web.
A sense of sheer unreality seemed to pervade the ominous silence as we moved upward onto the solid earth, before negotiating a steep pathway through the heavy undergrowth. Now Cadroc took Aelfric’s place in the lead, grasping the cross on his breast and drawing his sword as he told us:
‘Stay back, both of you, and wait. I must go ahead.’
I stood for a time in silence with Aelfric, who appeared restless and eager to move, while all the pressures which had been accumulating in me now grew to become almost unbearable. As I surveyed the dreary terrain surrounding us, I b
egan to imagine, as Aelfric had suggested, that all the brooding fears and shadows of my inner self were gathering to find solid form and substance somewhere beyond me.
‘Come!’ At last I heard Cadroc’s sharp whisper from up ahead. Aelfric moved at once to join him, and I knew I must follow, although I had no wish to view the harrowing scene I surely knew would reveal itself to us.
As we moved to higher ground the fog thinned into a damp and clinging mist, drifting over the earth to cover like a gossamer pall the five corpses which lay scattered about the remains of a fire. The scene matched almost exactly that which I had witnessed at the outlaws’ camp beyond my hermitage: the victims’ bodies savagely mangled and their skulls crushed and broken in just the same way, with those fearful and inexplicable claw-like rakes and gouges. But it looked to me here that some of the faces of the slain were by comparison almost calm and tranquil in death, so swiftly must it have been visited upon them. With a sense of revulsion I turned away, to see the face of Aelfric as he stood beside me, his expression fixed in that same look of great agony and fury I had seen while he gave comfort to the distressed man at Meretun, and quite different from his largely dispassionate state at the last scene of slaughter. I reflected then that these were men who had been personally known to him.
‘Our enemy has fled,’ said Cadroc, ‘but still we are close behind. So we go onward, and must follow the trail towards the northern settlements.’