The sun drew higher in the sky and a dragonfly hovered, unmoving, in front of Edwin, its jewelled eyes fixed upon the king before flicking out over the river and hawking a somnolent fly from the air. The dragonfly settled upon a willow and began, slowly and methodically, to consume the fly.
Chapter 18
“The king will not accept baptism.”
Paulinus was walking up and down outside the queen’s quarters. Æthelburh herself sat outside the building in the evening light, cradling her baby in her arms and rocking the little girl to sleep. The baby’s wet nurse sat upon a stool nearby, taking some thick, sweet mead to help replenish her milk.
Paulinus stopped his pacing and stood in front of the queen.
“He promised. The king promised he would accept baptism if God gave him victory against the West Saxons. God gave him victory, but when I asked the king when I could baptize him, he told me not yet. He said he had to think about it. Think about it!” Paulinus threw his hands up to the sky. “What is there to think about? I offer him the gift of eternal life, and he has to think about it!”
Æthelburh looked up at the priest, holding a finger to her lips.
“Shh,” she said.
“What?” said Paulinus.
“Shh,” repeated the queen.
“This is the king’s eternal soul, and you want me to be quiet?”
The baby squawked, almost settled, then began a long, reedy cry.
The queen glared at the priest. “I was trying to get her to sleep.”
Paulinus blushed. “I am sorry.”
Æthelburh, pursing her lips, tried to settle the baby, but the little girl would not be quieted and in the end the queen signed for the wet nurse.
“You take her,” she said, handing the swaddled infant to the wet nurse.
Clucking to the child, the wet nurse put the little girl to the breast. Æthelburh smoothed her dress over her knees and adjusted her veils.
“You were saying?”
“I – I am sorry. For waking the baby.”
“It is too hot for little Eanflæd.” Æthelburh fanned herself. “It is too hot for anyone.”
“But what are we going to do about the king?”
“What do we need to do about him?”
“About his baptism, of course.”
Using her veils, Æthelburh fanned herself further. “We wait and we pray. The king is not a man to be hurried, but he is a man who keeps his word.”
“But everything rests on him. If the king accepts baptism, then his thegns will too, and the people after them. Before long the whole kingdom will have been won for Christ. But as long as he waits, so will everyone else.”
“That is why he waits, Paulinus. If the king is baptized, then so is the kingdom. Edwin cannot accept baptism until he is sure that his thegns will follow him. Too many of them still follow the old gods, but many of the younger men are interested in your teaching, father, for they can see its fruit.”
Paulinus grimaced. “Bloody fruit. Victory over petty kings, treasure stolen and slaves taken. That is what they see. A battle god stronger than the old battle gods. But if that is all they see, I fear most dreadfully for the faith here in these lands. Yes, God gives victory to the righteous, but he tests them too – and did not the most righteous one of all die upon a cross? If faith be tied solely to victory in battle, I fear the fortunes of war will tear as many men from the church as bring them to her.”
Æthelburh shook her head. The gold and silver about her neck rang out the motion, the deep register of the sound revealing the weight and purity of the jewellery she wore.
“Father, have more faith! Honestly, I cannot believe I have to tell you this, but have more faith. Once men have been baptized, and the fire of the Spirit warms their cold souls, they will not abandon what they have been given. No! Not if they lose ten battles will they give it up. I would not.”
Paulinus bowed his head to the queen. Looking up, he was reminded by the freshness of her face that she was still so young. But ever since Æthelburh had married Edwin, and even more since she had been delivered of her baby, the young girl he had escorted north from Kent had become truly a queen, wise and courageous, and not above telling him, and others, where they were going wrong.
“It is I who should be exhorting you to faith, my queen; not the other way round.”
Æthelburh tried to look grave and magnanimous, but the effort collapsed into giggles. “Oh, Paulinus, to think I should be telling you off for anything! You used to terrify me when I was little, and my mother would say you were coming to teach me about God. I always tried to hide. You know, and God forgive me, I think I thought you actually were God, so much did you scare me.”
“Oh, mater Dei.” Paulinus crossed himself, his discomfiture serving to set Æthelburh laughing again. The priest waited while his blush paled and the queen’s mirth died away. The wet nurse looked up from the nursing baby and signed that she was sleeping. Æthelburh smiled her thanks and got up to look at the contented little one.
“Shall I put her down?” asked the wet nurse.
“Yes. Stay with her. I will come in soon.”
Cradling the sleeping baby the wet nurse went inside, and from outside queen and priest soon heard the rhythmic creak of the cradle and the softly crooned words of an old lullaby.
“Do you know when the king will return?” asked Paulinus.
“He should be back soon. The hunting must have been good for them to stay out so late, but the evenings are long at this time of year.”
Paulinus nodded.
“Why do you ask?”
The priest smiled. “I have something for him.” His smile grew broader, transforming his narrow, ascetic face. “And for you.”
Æthelburh clapped her hands excitedly and the priest reflected that one reason she was so laden with jewellery and gold must be that her husband took pleasure in giving her gifts and seeing the joy she got from them. Now it was his chance to give the queen a gift, and this a gift like no other.
“What is it?” asked Æthelburh.
Paulinus tapped the side of his long, thin nose. “Not until the king returns.”
“That is so unkind!” said Æthelburh.
“Patience is one of the seven holy virtues.”
“And as my confessor you know perfectly well it’s the one I struggle hardest to attain.”
“As your confessor, it is my task to inculcate it.”
Æthelburh pouted. Paulinus pointedly turned away, looking out over the palisades of the royal enclosure to the distant line of dark forest where Edwin and his men had ridden in the early morning. There were boar in that forest, and wolves; even rumour of bears. Now, approaching in the slanting evening light, he saw a long line of riders returning, their shadows stretching east over the fields.
“The king returns.” Paulinus turned and smiled at the queen. “You will not have to wait long.”
Æthelburh pouted again. “I am a queen,” she said. “I should not have to wait at all.”
“It is good for your soul,” said Paulinus.
“But not for my humours. Can you not give me a clue?”
Paulinus shook his head. “No, my queen.”
“But how did you get these gifts?” Æthelburh clapped her hands together. “It wasn’t that little priest you met in York? The one with the strange accent, whom you shut yourself away with for hours on end?”
Paulinus tapped the other side of his nose. “When the king returns, all will be revealed.”
“Oh, that is just not fair. It will be hours before they’re back and ready to eat – before that there will be all the boasting about who killed what and which falcon brought down the biggest bird. You simply must give me some sort of clue or I will burst, and you don’t want a burst queen on your conscience, do you, father?”
“True… A clue: these gifs come from far away.”
“Kent? Was it Mother? Did she send the gifts?”
“Further than that.”
“My grandmother, then, from the land of the Franks?”
“Even further.”
“Surely not Burgundy?”
“I don’t think you will guess.”
“I will, I will. The land of the Visigoths? Aquitaine.”
Paulinus laughed. “I can see you really will burst, my queen, if I do not tell you.”
Æthelburh nodded rapidly, her jewellery adding its own assent. “I will, I really will.”
“Very well. These gifts I have for you are from… are from…”
“Yes?”
“The pope.”
Æthelburh suddenly went pale, and for a moment the priest feared she might faint, but the queen steadied herself by taking hold of the doorpost.
“Are – are you all right, my queen?”
“Did you say the pope sent these gifts? The pope in Rome?”
“Yes.”
“You mean to tell me the pope, the successor of Peter, the man who can unlock the gates of heaven – the pope knows who I am?”
“Of course he does. And he prays for you every day.”
“How do you know?”
“He says so in his letter.”
Æthelburh suddenly sat down, hard, upon her stool. She was gasping. Paulinus crouched beside her and started fanning her face with the hem of his robe.
“My queen, are you all right? Should I get you something to drink?”
“I – I…” Æthelburh stopped talking and joined in the fanning, using her veils to send air over blush-red skin. When the flush had receded, Æthelburh held out her hand. “Help me up.”
After smoothing her skirts, the queen ran her fingers over her cheeks and brow, rubbing away the sweat that had pricked her skin.
“Are – are you better?” Paulinus asked fearfully. He had not expected this reaction to his news.
“Am I better? After you tell me that the pope prays for me every day; that he has written a letter to me and sent me gifts? Of course I am better! I must make myself ready to hear his words and receive his gifts.” Æthelburh turned to head inside. “When my husband returns, tell him you have important news for him and that I will join him to receive the news.” She beamed at the priest. “He will be delighted.”
Chapter 19
“You have a message for me?”
Paulinus nodded, trying hard not to glance at Æthelburh sitting next to the king, for surely then he would begin to laugh.
“I do, lord.”
“Who is it from?”
“The pope. In Rome. The, ah, chief thegn to our Lord, and the head of the church in this world.”
Edwin looked around the hall. “Where is the messenger?”
Paulinus held up the parchment. “This is the messenger.”
The king looked from the obscure markings on the parchment to the priest. “You have memorized the message?”
“There is no need to. The words of the pope are here, laid out on this parchment. His very words.”
Edwin stared at the message. “How is this possible?”
“It’s true, the pope probably did not write the message himself – he would have dictated it to one of his scribes, who wrote it on a chalk slate and then transcribed the words onto parchment. But yes, these are the words of the pope himself.”
Edwin stared fixedly at the parchment. Paulinus, knowing that the king could not read, wondered why he was looking at it with such concentration.
“You said you are holding in your hands… words?”
“Yes, lord.” Paulinus held up the parchment so that the king could see the writing more clearly. “These marks are words such as you or I speak, although of course the language is Latin.”
“Ah, is it only that language, Latin, that can be preserved in such a manner?”
“No, I do not think so. Latin is the language of the church – it enables us to speak to each other, from one end of the world to the other, whatever our native tongue, but these marks represent sounds.” Paulinus pursed his lips as he looked down at the script, before nodding and turning back to the king. “I think, lord, that it would be possible to write the sounds of your tongue in this script too. It would take work, but it should be possible.”
“By such means I could be present where I am not,” said Edwin. “My laws could be given to every thegn and council in the kingdom, the very laws themselves. We would not have to rely on the uncertain recall of some messenger.”
“Yes. Yes, you could,” said Paulinus, impressed with the speed at which Edwin had grasped the implications and potential of such an invention.
“Who has knowledge of this?”
“Most priests can read, at least enough to follow the words of the Mass, but reading is not enough. You need someone who can write. For that you need monks.”
“What are monks?”
“I am a monk. As the role of a warrior is to follow his lord and fight, so that of a monk is to serve God and pray. But to pray the Holy Office, monks need books, so many monks are trained to write, and read.”
“Can you write and read?”
“I read well. My writing is… adequate. I have no great hand.”
Edwin nodded. “Let me hear what your pope has to say to me. But I think I will have need of monks in future.”
Paulinus took a step back and held the parchment up so that he could read it better in the light.
“The message is written in Latin, but I will translate.” He looked over the top of the parchment. The king was leaning forward in the judgement seat, concentrating fiercely.
“From Boniface, of the City and Church of Rome, the servant of the servants of God, to the illustrious Edwin, king of the English.
“No words of man can encompass the power of the high God, who abides in his own power, eternal, invisible, inscrutable. Yet through his humanity, God has seen fit to open the hearts of men to his presence and to reveal to us the secrets of his nature. As bishop and pastor, we now seek to make known to you the key to this knowledge, how through faith in Christ you may drink the cup of salvation.
“Our merciful God, who through his word creates and sustains the world, proclaimed the laws by which it exists; and through this word and in the unity of the Holy Spirit, he made man in his own image out of the dust of the earth. To man God granted the greatest privilege of all earthly creatures: that he might know eternal life through obedience to God’s laws. This very God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the eternal, undivided Trinity – is worshipped by men from the rising of the sun to its setting. All royal power and authority on earth is subject to God, for it is from God that kingship comes. Such is God’s mercy and concern for the well-being of his creatures that he has sent his Holy Spirit to warm the frozen hearts of the most distant nations.
“We trust that Your Majesty has heard how your neighbour and king, Eadbald of Kent, has through the mercy of our Redeemer been brought to knowledge of the light. We trust that God, through his mercy, will give this gift to you as well, more particularly since we learn that your gracious queen and true partner has already been blessed with the gift of eternal life through baptism. We fondly hope Your Majesty will renounce the worship of idols and the deceit of omens, and profess your faith in God the Father Almighty, his Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. This faith will free you from thraldom to the devil and, in due course, give to you the gift of eternal life.
“We send to you the blessings of Peter, Prince of the Apostles. We send also a tunic, ornamented with gold, and a cloak from Ancyra, asking Your Majesty to accept our gifts with the same goodwill with which they are sent.”
Paulinus gestured James forward, and the deacon laid before the king the tunic and cloak
. They were rich gifts, the cloak dyed the deepest imperial purple, but the king viewed them distractedly. His attention was still upon the message. The queen, standing beside Edwin, saw well how he stared at the parchment Paulinus was holding and she chose to hold her peace and to allow the pope’s message time to work its way into her husband’s soul.
“Those are the very words of your pope, your king?”
“As if he were standing here himself.”
“Delivered from the other side of the world.” Edwin shook his head. “It is a world of wonders we live in. And this message he sends – if it is true, it is most passing strange: you say the God of the heavens, the maker of all, sent his Son among us? How did he come? Why did I never before hear of him, for surely he must have been the greatest of all kings? Was he one of the emperors of old? Did he raise the stone towns and towers, and lay down the straight roads that are about this land and, I hear from travellers, through the rest of this middle-earth?”
Paulinus shocked himself by blushing.
“Er, no, lord. The emperors of old, um, they killed him.”
“Death in battle is glorious. The gods rain favours upon warriors who die in battle.”
Paulinus exchanged glances with the queen. This was going to be difficult.
“Our Lord did not die in battle. He died upon a tree. He was executed. By the Romans.”
“But how was he taken prisoner? What happened to his thegns? Were they all killed?”
“His men all abandoned him. They ran away and left him to be captured.”
Edwin Page 24