Edwin

by Edoardo Albert

  “No!” Edwin gasped. “The lord of all creation, and you say his men betrayed him?”

  “Well, one, Judas, actually betrayed him. All the others ran away.”

  Edwin shook his head. “I would not have betrayed him. I would have stayed at his side.”

  Paulinus stared at the intense figure of the king, leaning forward upon the judgement seat, and he nodded. “I believe you would have, lord. But – ah, wyrd or, as we might say, providence – decreed otherwise. It was the fate of our Lord Jesus Christ to fall into the hands of the wicked and the evil, and to die at their hands, innocent and blameless, as a sacrifice made once and for all for the wrongs that we do. But here is the difference, and the proof of what I say. Lord, when you make sacrifice to your gods, what happens?”

  “Coifi takes the animal – or it could be a slave or prisoner, although not often – and kills it, cutting its throat usually. Then he throws some of the blood before the god in the sacred grove, and burns the fat so the smoke goes up to the gods. Coifi then reads the runes, or travels in spirit, or uses the bones to see whether the gods are satisfied with the sacrifice. If the gods are satisfied, well and good. If they are not, we sacrifice some more.”

  As Edwin spoke, Paulinus nodded. “Yes, yes. But here is the difference, lord. When Jesus Christ offered himself as sacrifice for us, God showed that he had accepted the sacrifice not by the rattle of bones or the stink of spilled entrails, but by raising Jesus from the dead. For forty days he walked among us, talked to us, ate and drank with us, a man again, of flesh and blood, but transformed in a most marvellous manner. There is the guarantee of what I preach; there is the pledge of my words. Jesus Christ proved it himself, in his body, through God receiving his death and returning him to glorious life. And through faith in him we too can share this life.”

  Edwin nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “These are great matters of which you speak, Paulinus. But when I receive a messenger with an important message from a king, I require some proof of what he says, that he carries the true words of his lord. What trust can I put in your words?”

  “I am an apostle of the apostles. Every word you hear from me I received from others, who in turn passed on the testimony of those who received Jesus Christ after his resurrection. Our Lord tasked these men with spreading the good news, the hope unbidden of life eternal in God, to the furthest ends of the earth and to every people, and they did so, laying down their lives and spilling their blood that everyone might hear and know that they too are invited to the feast; that they too have a seat at the high table beside our Lord. And the apostles wrote down the message in our holy book, and the words of the message are there, as Jesus himself spoke them, as the words of the pope in Rome were delivered to you just now.”

  “What holy book is this of which you speak?”

  “The holy book is the Bible, the book of the words of God.”

  “I would see this book.”

  “Lord, the Bible has many, many pages and it is the labour of many months and many men to copy a new one. I do not have a Bible with me, although I have asked Bishop Justus that he might send the book to me and I hope, God willing, to receive it should you accept baptism and the gift of life. However, I do have a Gospel book.”

  “What is that?”

  “It contains the four books telling the good news of Jesus Christ, but does not have the books telling the history of the people of Israel or of the early history of the church. James,” Paulinus turned to his deacon, “run and fetch it.”

  “While we wait for him to bring the book,” said Æthelburh, “do you want to see what the pope sent me?”

  Edwin looked to his wife. “He sent you gifts too?”

  Æthelburh beamed. “Yes, he did. And here they are.”

  While the queen showed the silver mirror and the beautifully worked gold and silver comb that the pope had sent her to the king, Paulinus stood fretting for James’s return. He glanced around the great hall. As usual it contained knots of men sitting at table over cups of beer, scurrying slaves and, in one corner, Acca practising with his lyre while lining up a surprising number of empty beer cups upon the table.

  But then Paulinus saw Coifi, hunched in his raven-feather cloak, a darker shadow within a pool of shadow. The priest was staring up at the high table, his face pale white against the dusty black of his mantle. His hands were moving in jerky rhythm, snaking the bird-bone rattle through the air, and his lips were moving. Paulinus knew well that sight: Coifi was praying to his gods. It was all Paulinus could do not to sign the cross in protection against whatever demons Coifi was calling up, but the Italian remembered well Edwin’s fury when he had openly opposed Coifi before; he would not make that mistake again. Instead, Paulinus slowly and deliberately turned his back on the priest.

  Coifi howled. He howled with the long, drawn-out ululations of women lamenting the dead and wolves welcoming the full moon. He howled with the desolation of halls burned down and fields laid waste. He howled, and the hall fell into silence. The few groups of gossiping men turned from conversation to stare at him. Slaves stopped in their tasks. Acca laid aside his lyre, picked up his cup and stood for a better view.

  Paulinus stiffened but he did not turn round. He kept his back to the priest, but from the reactions of Edwin and Æthelburh he could tell that Coifi was approaching the high table. A surreptitious adjustment of the queen’s mirror allowed him to see what Coifi was doing without giving him the satisfaction of seeing Paulinus turn to stare at him.

  The priest was approaching the high table in little jagged, jerking runs, the movements mimicking those of a bird foraging for food: quick scuttles interspersed with moments of watchful stillness. Whenever he stopped, poised and alert, the priest’s head snapped from side to side as if seeing sights not apparent to everyone else in the hall and he shook his bone rattle towards those unseen creatures as if warding them off.

  For Paulinus, it was an appalling but fascinating spectacle, and in the end he could not help but turn to watch. However, he noticed that after the initial reaction, the slaves had returned to their work, and conversation resumed in the hall. It seemed that this sort of behaviour from Coifi was not unknown.

  As the priest slowly approached the high table in juddering fits and starts, Edwin rose to his feet and Æthelburh stood beside him. Guthlaf, on the other hand, who had been sitting quietly at one end of the table, shook his head and reached for a cup of beer.

  Coifi darted closer, rattle shaking, then as swiftly moved away, his eyes rolling up white into his skull and spittle leaking from the corners of his mumbling, trembling lips.

  Æthelburh looked to her husband. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “The gods are speaking to him,” said Edwin. His voice was neutral and his eyes veiled as he answered.

  Guthlaf snorted and took another swallow from his cup, holding the emptied vessel out for a slave to refill.

  Coifi rattled closer, his raven-feather cloak creaking as he approached, the feathers rustling like dead leaves. But just as he appeared to be coming to a halt in front of the king, he darted away again, apparently called by a whorl of smoke rising from the hearth fire. The priest passed his hands through the smoke thread, bathed his face in it so that his eyes wept, then turned the red-rimmed, weeping eyes to the king and queen. Æthelburh gasped. Red tears, tears of blood, were oozing down Coifi’s cheeks, leaving their salt-thick tracks upon his face.

  “Why?”

  Æthelburh glanced at the king. Edwin was looking at Coifi calmly enough, but Æthelburh saw the tension in his jaw and the throb at his temple.

  The king made no answer to the question, and Coifi swept closer, sending the feathers of his cloak rattling over the table.

  “Why?”

  Again the king made no reply. From the end of the table, Guthlaf belched, suddenly, explosively, and Æthelburh saw Coifi’s red eyes flick in annoyance at
the old warrior. The ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of Edwin’s eye. Relieved, Æthelburh turned back to the priest.

  Coifi shook his bone rattle at the king. Edwin did not flinch. In fact – Æthelburh glanced to make sure – the smile seemed to be tugging harder at his face.

  “Why?” Coifi repeated. But this third time it lacked the sibilant menace of its previous iterations, sounding more like a querulous child than a wight whispering from a barrow.

  Finally, Edwin reacted. “Are you threatening me, Coifi?” he asked.

  The priest shrank back, blanching, as if it were he who now heard the wights whisper his name from the tomb.

  “No! No, lord, never. Never.” Coifi crept closer again, scuttling low, glancing around as if he were not already the centre of all attention in the hall. He sidled closer to Edwin, whispering, so that the king had to bend close to hear his words.

  On one side, Æthelburh leaned in to hear the conversation, as did Paulinus on the king’s other side. Guthlaf, however, made a show of picking his teeth with a bone needle.

  “…if some others seek to lead you astray,” Æthelburh heard, when she tuned her ears in to Coifi’s voice, “to take you from the ways of your fathers and your fathers’ fathers, let no one say that I did not speak, lord, and bring word to you: wyrd has made you great, lord, greater than any other king in the land, but the gods require honour and sacrifice, lest they take their favour from you. Do not go chasing after new gods, unknown to your fathers. Where was this god when Uxfrea took the whale road across the grey sea? Where was this god when Ælla took Deira from the Britons?” Coifi crept even closer to Edwin, like a dog sidling up to its master, and, laying his hand on Edwin’s arm, said, “The old gods, the gods of your fathers, have been faithful to you, Edwin Ællason. Keep faith with them, and they will reward you mightily. Break that faith, and they will bring you and all your people down.”

  Æthelburh looked anxiously at her husband. Coifi was grasping his forearm and pawing at his belt with his other hand, but the king looked down at him as if paralysed. The queen made to speak, but Guthlaf caught her eyes and shook his head. She fell back. Waited. The whole hall had lapsed into silence; conversations stilled and work stopped as eyes, openly or surreptitiously, turned to the king and his priest, caught in a tableau of indecision.

  Only one man moved.

  Paulinus left his place at table. A bead of sweat pricked through the skin of his forehead and tracked down between his eyebrows and along the side of his nose. Guthlaf tried to attract his attention and stop him, but the Italian’s dark eyes did not move from the king. It was as if he was in a trance, or walked asleep but with eyes wide. Paulinus stopped in front of the king.

  “King Edwin.”

  The king, unaware of Paulinus’s approach, jerked. Coifi, squatting beside the king, hissed and tried to paw his attention back, but Edwin brushed his hand away.

  “Do you remember this sign?”

  Paulinus stepped forward and laid his right hand upon Edwin’s head.

  Around the great hall, a gasp arose, and oaths, and whispers and murmurs, for it was a thing unheard that a man should lay his hand upon the head of the king.

  But Edwin made no move in anger. He stared into the priest’s dark eyes and his own face grew pale, as pale as winter’s breath.

  “I…I remember this sign,” Edwin said, but his voice was a whisper as from the grave, and it seemed the strength of his limbs was upon the point of failing him, for he lurched as if to fall. But Paulinus stepped forward and took the king in his arms and lowered him gently to his seat.

  Coifi hissed and lifted his rattle, but Paulinus turned upon him as a man turns upon a snake.

  “Be gone! In Jesus’ name, I command you: go!”

  Coifi shrank back, but he did not go. He turned to Edwin.

  “Lord?”

  The king turned his pale face to him, and Coifi shrank from it, for it was the face of one who has seen his death.

  “Go,” whispered Edwin.

  The priest, snuffling like a beaten child, scuttled from the hall.

  The queen was chafing Edwin’s cold hands, while an alarmed Guthlaf brought wine for the king to drink.

  “What did you do to him?” Æthelburh asked Paulinus.

  The priest himself seemed to shiver, and his eyes, which were before as distant as the moon, focused again on the queen. “I reminded the king of a promise he made, many years ago,” said Paulinus.

  Edwin turned to the priest. “So, it was your god that delivered me from my enemies and lifted me up above my fathers and my fathers’ fathers.”

  Paulinus nodded. “God brought you forth from the hands of your enemies, when all hands were turned against you, and he has made you a king greater than any in this land. You promised, many years ago, when you stood in darkness by the sea in the kingdom of the East Angles, to follow the counsel of the man who promised you truthfully that this was what God meant for you.”

  “I so promised.”

  “Then accept the faith I bring you. Obey God’s commands, be baptized, and the God who saved you from your enemies on earth will save you from your enemies after death and give you a place in his eternal kingdom.”

  Edwin bowed his head. Æthelburh, as still as a drawn bowstring, watched her husband.

  Edwin raised his head.

  “I will accept your faith,” he said. The queen let out a long drawn-out breath. She lifted Edwin’s hand to her lips and kissed it. But the king’s gaze did not leave the priest.

  “It is my will as well as my duty to accept your faith. But I am a king. I decide not only for myself, but for my people. To that end I will call together a council of all my people, and you shall put the truth of your – of our – new faith to them all, that they may be persuaded of its truth. Then my people and I shall enter into this new life together, and there will be no schism between king and people. Do you, Paulinus, understand and agree to this?”

  “Yes,” said the priest. “Yes, I agree.”

  “Very well.” Edwin stood up, and his voice reached to every corner of the great hall. “Let the message go out to all men of Northumbria that they are to assemble for a great council, at York, six months hence at the feast of Eostre, there to consider the taking of the new religion that has come to us of late, through the queen and Paulinus her priest.”

  As Edwin finished his announcement, James finally returned, carrying the Gospel book.

  “Did I miss something?” he said.

  Chapter 20

  Later, when the night drew down and the hall had settled into a contented hum of conversation, James turned to Paulinus.

  “With all that happened, I forgot to tell you something I saw earlier. When I had taken the Gospel book from its stand, and censed it, I came out and saw the priest, Coifi. He was in front of the old oak tree where he makes sacrifices, but there was something strange about what he was doing, so I must confess, father, I crept a little closer to try to see and hear better. Was that a sin?”

  “No, no, of course not,” said Paulinus. He leaned closer to James, lowering his voice. Coifi had not returned to the hall after Edwin had sent him forth. “What did you see?”

  “The priest was squatting on the ground, and as I got closer I could see he was picking up handfuls of dust and throwing them over his hair and clothing, like a bird having a bath. I could hear he was talking, muttering, but I was too far away to hear clearly, so I went even closer, staying behind the stockade so he could not see me.”

  “Yes? Go on.”

  “I could only make out some of the words. At the beginning, I think he was chanting his genealogy, the names of his fathers and his fathers’ fathers, but then he started snuffling and crying, like a little boy when his father has beaten him. Then he asked the tree – I suppose it must be his idol – why the gods no longer listened to him and why
they did not help him. He asked if there was any sacrifice he could make to win back the gods’ favour, and then he went silent, as if he was listening. I was just about to give up and come back when he jumped up and started striking the tree with his hands and kicking it with his feet, screaming at it, ‘Why don’t you answer me?’ I thought he was going mad. I hope I did no wrong?”

  “No, indeed,” said Paulinus. “No wrong at all.”

  Further along the high table, Guthlaf saw the two Italians deep in conversation. He did not understand their language – no one did among the Northumbrians – and he was always suspicious of shielded talk; it could too easily turn to treachery. But the expressions on the men’s faces were clear and without guile, and the way they held themselves suggested no perfidy. Putting away suspicion – for the moment – Guthlaf turned to Edwin.

  Lowering his voice, so that their conversation might remain between the two of them, he said, “Are you sure about this new religion?”

  Edwin glanced around to make sure no slaves were near.

  “Forthred, if he were alive, would remember. When I was in exile, at Rædwald’s court, Æthelfrith sent a messenger declaring that he would offer either riches or war for my death. Rædwald was minded to accept the riches – maybe I would have done the same, for the Twister had by this time twisted all the north to him, and many of the middle kingdoms. Forthred brought me word of my doom, and advice to take the whale road and pass over the grey sea to the courts of our kinsmen beyond.”

  Edwin stared into the hearth fire, his gaze focused upon the past. Then, looking at Guthlaf, he said, “I was tired. Weary past understanding. I had spent years running from Æthelfrith. After Forthred had told me that Rædwald planned to give me up to him I went to the shore. It was night, a clear night but dark, with only the star glimmer and wave glow to light the darkness. And when I was standing on the beach, a man came to me. At first I thought he was one of Æthelfrith’s assassins, but wyrd – or maybe something else – stayed my hand when I might have struck him down. The man spoke to me, and promised that I would overcome my enemies and rise up, a king greater than any of my forefathers.” Edwin looked back into the fire, and his voice was so low that Guthlaf, bending close, could barely hear it.