As they went, Edwin pointed out parts of the city where he had played as a boy. Now, at twilight, the ruins appeared to close in around them, the empty doors gaping darkly as if opening into a night that had no day. But Edwin knew the city of old, and it held no fears for him. He had often crept through it at night, when his only companions were cats and other night creatures. Now, even fewer of the buildings retained their roofs, but the geography of York remained printed on his soul.
“My father made the first building here since the time of the emperors,” Edwin said, pointing to the great hall as they rounded the corner to see its watchfires blazing. “Now we are building the second. We are raising it in wood, that it might soon be ready, but if the council agrees that we adopt these new ways – and I trust that it will – then we shall see something that has not been seen on this island for generations.” Edwin looked to his sons, to make sure they were listening. “We shall raise a building to our new God and we shall raise it in stone, as the emperors did of old, and it will last for a thousand years or more, as their buildings do, even though the men who raised them are dead these many generations past.” The king stopped. “Now do you understand the importance of this great council?”
Osfrith nodded his understanding. Eadfrith whistled through his teeth, his eyes widening as he realized what his father planned.
“You will be like one of the emperors of old,” he said.
But Edwin shook his head. “They ruled all the world, and this city was but a tiny part of their realm. I am no emperor, but Paulinus tells me that the emperors were brought low for their slaying of God himself. Now, if we ally ourselves with God, the God who brought low the men who ruled the world, who knows what we might be able to accomplish?”
Guthlaf grinned. “Well, we’d better make sure the council goes to plan then.”
He winked at the two princes. “Maybe speak to a few more men tonight – let them know which way the waves are breaking.”
“There are some I have spoken to who will never agree,” said Osfrith. “They say that if we should part from the ways of our fathers, then their curses will follow us to the grave.”
“Well, we shall see what they say tomorrow,” said Edwin. “But remember: your persuasion must be gentle; I do not want any man to stand up in council to say that he has been asked at sword point to abandon the ways of his fathers. This decision must be made by all, and freely. Do you understand?” And the king looked from Guthlaf to Osfrith to Eadfrith. “Good. Now, I will sleep while you speak, for I fear that my voice shall be hard called upon tomorrow.”
Chapter 23
“Hwæt!”
Acca’s voice, trained to cut through drinking songs and boastings and dogs fighting, cut easily through the low murmur of conversation. The great hall was full, each bench jammed with men sitting elbow to elbow, but there was as yet no food upon the tables and only small beer to drink. The hour was nearing noon, and the great council was about to begin. It would deliberate better, Edwin had decided, on empty stomachs and clear heads.
“Be silent, for the king speaks!”
Edwin rose. The hall quietened further, until the only sounds came from the furtive movements of slaves attempting to go about their tasks without drawing any attention to themselves, and the grumbles and rumbles of the dogs, questioning why so many men were gathered with so little food.
From his place at the high table, Edwin looked around the hall, seeking to make eye contact with as many of his thegns and counsellors as he could. Most returned his gaze frankly, although in many he saw questions and doubts, and in others the blankness of outright hostility. Few indeed appeared ready to accept what he was proposing, although some might be persuaded. But would it be enough to carry the council with him?
“Despite what Acca just said, I have not summoned you to York to hear me speak. No, I have asked you to come together in council so that I may hear you, and learn your hearts and minds on a great subject: the new teaching that has come to us from over the grey sea, and whether we should leave the ways of our fathers and accept this new teaching, as the men of Kent have done, and the Franks and the Goths and many other peoples. So now I propose to hear your words and learn your hearts on this matter, that I may better decide for my people which path we should follow. Fear not, but speak boldly and freely.” Edwin scanned the great hall, feeling the mood in it shift; the council was settling, adjusting to its role. Even those faces that had been hostile were opening, preparing to make their case. For many men had come to council gripping anger in their bowels, convinced that the decision was already made and the council called for show. But the king’s words had reassured them: this was to be a council as in the days of their fathers, when the weight of a king’s thegns and counsellors could overbalance even the expressed wishes of a king.
“Bassus, I call on you to speak.”
Edwin sat down, satisfied with the ripple that passed through the hall as he called on Bassus. All knew that the thegn of Anglesey was adamant that they should retain the ways of their fathers, his opposition strengthened by the difficulties he had had over the years in extracting annual tribute from the men, particularly the churchmen, of the island.
Bassus exchanged glances with the men either side of him, then slowly rose. The hall settled into silence.
The thegn, a man in the full strength of his years, with experience enough to leaven his early rashness, acknowledged his king across the hall, making the courtesy. He stood tall, his arms thick with rings of gold and garnet, inlaid buckles sparkling at his shoulders and a heavy gold brooch holding his cloak about his chest. Anglesey was rich and reluctant: the ideal province for the enrichment of an energetic thegn.
“You ask well, lord,” he said. “As your father would have done.” Murmurs of agreement spread from him, although few of the men in the hall were old enough to have served Edwin’s father.
“But before I speak on the matter of this council, I must tell you of another matter. There has been no tribute from Anglesey this year. My men returned with tales of abandoned farms and missing animals, a land laid waste. Even their churches were empty. No one came to the summons and my men returned with the bare gleanings of what is our due.”
“Was there sign of Cadwallon? I have heard that he yet lives.”
“No, there was no sign of anyone. It was as if all the people of the island had left.”
Edwin nodded. “We will speak of this later, Bassus, but I thank you for telling me. For now, let us confine ourselves to the topic of this council.”
Bassus thrust out his chest. “I say no. No, no and again no.” His gaze swept the hall. “From the times of our fathers’ fathers’ fathers, from the time when our ancestors took the whale road and came to this land, we have received the favour of the gods. When our forefathers came to this land, did the Britons give them land to farm and bread to eat? Oh no, our forefathers had to take land for their own, that they might hand it down to us, their sons and grandsons. They fought for this land, they bought it in blood. This land is blood land, their battles our weregild, and you would ask us to give that up, to forsake the ways of our fathers? I say again, no, a thousand times no!”
Spreading out from Bassus came a ripple of agreement: men nodding and agreeing under their breath, while others looked thoughtful and many appeared troubled. At the other side of the hall an old thegn, his hair now more white than blond, rose to his feet.
“I am Cenhelm of Cundall, and if Bassus has finished speaking, I call on this council to hear me.”
Edwin looked to Bassus, who sat down to many congratulatory whispers, then signed for Cenhelm to continue.
“I have a question to put to the council. When our fathers crossed the grey seas, what religion did they follow?”
The answer spread from Cenhelm around the hall. “The religion of their fathers.”
“And when our fathers arrived here an
d fought the lords of Deira for this land, and took it, which religion did they follow then?”
The murmur was louder this time. “The religion of their fathers.”
Cenhelm nodded as he looked around the hall. “But the lords of Deira our fathers fought and defeated, what religion did they follow?”
The murmur grew louder, and men exchanged glances and nodded to each other. “The new religion.”
“Then, O council, I ask you in all earnestness: are we mad that we should think of giving up the ways of our fathers to follow the religion of the men our fathers defeated?”
The murmurs grew louder. But Edwin sat with his chin resting upon his hand and made no answer, his face remaining as blank and unreadable as stone. Finally, the king spoke. “We will eat now. I would that when we return to council you will all continue to speak as truthfully as Cenhelm and Bassus have spoken. I earnestly want to hear your true views.”
Harassed looking slaves began scuttling back and forth to the kitchen where teams of even more harassed cooks stoked the cooking fires. The steward sent out relays of slaves and servants with jugs of wine, ale, beer and mead; anything to fill the time as loaves were pulled from ovens and pigs spun faster over the flames.
The thegns and counsellors drank hard, and the hall filled with conversation and laughter, but there was a brittle edge to the talk and a harshness to the glee that suggested the tension underlying all.
Edwin himself barely sipped from his cup and when the bread finally arrived he dipped it in the wine and chewed at it in preference to the roast fowl set on the table before him.
When the food had been served, the council reconvened. Outside, the sun was drawing down in a pale, washed-out sky. Tatters of the morning cloud trailed into the east, and in the west a dark front advanced upon the lowering sun, but for the moment the sky above York was clear.
“Hwæt!”
The familiar call sounded out and the council lapsed into what passed for silence following a drink-fuelled feast. There were those, of course, who insisted upon passing wind and finding it amusing, but when the king turned a chilly gaze upon them they hid behind their cups.
“We heard earlier why we should not turn from the ways of our forefathers,” said Edwin, “and much that we heard was true. It has given us much to think upon. Who now will speak?”
Through the silence came the dry rattle of bone. From his place by the fire, Coifi arose, arms spread, bone rattle shaking out a staccato, snake-hiss rhythm. Whispers rose around him, then spread through to the ends of the hall.
Edwin turned to look at the priest.
“Coifi,” he said.
But the priest gave no indication that he had heard the king. He shook his rattle out, passing it through the flames, and spurts of violent, violet smoke puffed upwards, spitting and crackling, to the roof, accompanied by gasps from many of the watching men.
Coifi shuffled around in front of the fire, snuffling the air like a questing hound. His head snapped around, and he stared, eyes white, at Bassus. As quickly, his hand thrust out, and fingers that seemed little more than bone fingered the heavy gold brooch at Bassus’s throat.
“The king gave you Anglesey, Bassus, and you have sucked the gold from it.”
Bassus grasped the priest’s wrist. “Are you suggesting I have not given the king his due?”
Coifi’s eyes rolled white, and he laughed. For the thegn it was as if a corpse laughed into his face, and he pushed the priest’s wrist away from him as if it was that of a dead man.
The priest’s eyes rolled down again, and he spun round upon the assembly.
“Bassus asks if he has given the king his due. I have a question for you – for all of you.” He slowly circled, taking all the hall into his query. “Have I given the gods their due?” Coifi flung out his bone rattle, rapping it upon a table. “Have I?” Those closest mumbled assurances, but Coifi was not satisfied.
“Have I not served the gods, sacrificed to them, searched amid smoke and blood and leaf fall for the weaving of wyrd, that I might know the will of the gods and the workings of the fate singers?” Coifi drew himself high and straight. “I have. I know I have. You know I have. There is no one here who has served the gods more diligently and for longer than I. I have served them since I was a babbling babe and my father offered me to the gods; I have served them well and faithfully.”
Coifi rounded upon the assembly once again. “And what do I have to show for my years of service? A cloak and a rattle, and a bench in my lord’s hall. That is all. All.” He looked around, breathing heavily, face flushed. “Do you begin to understand? Look.” He pointed at Bassus. “Look at him. So heavy laden with gold he can scarce stand under its weight, yet I tell you, for all his fine words about following the ways of our forefathers, Bassus, from his riches, begrudged even a goat in sacrifice to the gods – he gave me a salmon! I wouldn’t even give a salmon to a slave, but that’s what he offered in sacrifice to the gods, and what did they do? The gods showered him with gold. But to me, who has laboured in their service all the days of my life, they gave nothing! Nothing at all. So I say, let us hear what this new religion promises, for if the gods had power to reward those who labour in their service, then I would be standing here before you in gold and silver and crimson, as fat as a pig, not wearing the remains of birds long dead and with less flesh on me than a wraith. That is what I, Coifi, all my life priest to the ungrateful gods, say.”
The priest slowly circled the assembly. Every face was turned to him and in most of them eyes were wide with shock. Guthlaf, however, gave the priest the tiniest of nods in acknowledgement. As Coifi sat down, a babble of voices rose up around him, excited and amazed voices, for never had such words been spoken before, and certainly never by a priest. Bassus sat gaping, his mouth opening and closing like a fish brought out from water, until Coifi, seeing him, shouted over the noise, “It was a small salmon too!” This brought a gale of laughter crashing down around Bassus, and many slopping-over cups of ale and wine were laid down in front of Coifi. He looked at them wide-eyed, then began to steadily work his way through them, smiling his thanks to his benefactors.
As the hubbub slowly subsided, Guthlaf rose. The warmaster spoke seldom in council, but when he did, men listened.
“You know me. I am a warrior. What I know is battle and death and killing, and I know these things well. I have given my due to the gods, I have looked for the weavings of wyrd, but all I have seen is a life rounded out, at start and end, by darkness and death. For it seems to me that what we know of our time is like the flight of a sparrow that swoops into this hall on a winter’s day, when we are seated, gathered together, around the fire. Inside the hall there is comfort and warmth and fellowship, but outside, the storms of winter, the snow and the hail, rage. The sparrow flies in through one door and then swiftly flies out again. Now, for that minute when the sparrow is in the hall it is safe from the storm, but after that minute of comfort the bird flies out again into the winter and the night. In such a way is our life on this middle-earth, for we walk its green fields for such a short while, but of what comes before or after this life we know nothing. Now if this new religion brings knowledge of what our fate is to be after our time here, then it seems to me right that we should follow it. For surely our forefathers, if they had had access to this knowledge, they would have accepted it too. So while we do well to follow the ways of our forefathers, there is no sense in following in a man’s footsteps if that man has no idea of where he is going.” Guthlaf looked around the hall. “That is what I say.” Many of the men watching nodded, others tugged their beards or ran their fingers through moustaches thoughtfully.
“Very well.” The king gestured to where Paulinus was sitting, at the end of the high table. “Let the priest of the new god tell us of his god. Then we shall decide.”
As every eye in the hall turned to him, Paulinus bowed his head, his lips movi
ng in silent prayer, before standing. Then, in full view of every man in the hall, he signed the cross upon his body.
“You ask for knowledge.” Paulinus scanned the watching faces. They were leaning forward, ready to hear what he had to say. Not yet convinced, but open to his words in a way that he had not seen before. The priest offered up a wordless prayer for words. “This is right, for all men seek after knowledge. I have seen your seeking, in the prayers and sacrifices you offer to your gods in their sacred groves in the woods. Oh yes, I have watched from afar the blood spilled and the flesh burnt and the chants made. But to what? To idols of wood no more sensible of your words than the tree is of the axe that fells it. Ask your own priest: have these gods heard his prayers or granted him favour for his service? No, and nor can they, for they are no more than creations of your own mind fashioned into images and fed with dreams. But my God, my God walked among us, a man among men, though he fashioned the earth beneath our feet and the stars in heaven. My God came among us, for we lived in bondage, hostages taken by the evil one, death the weregild for the treason of our forefather. But God came among us and offered himself for our freedom, his blood for our blood, his life for our lives, as a king among you stands in the centre of the shieldwall, taking every blow the enemy hurls upon him.”
Paulinus paused and looked around the hall. Men were leaning towards him, eyes wide with wonder, their faces as open as when they heard Acca tell one of the stories of old.
“Yes, I have sat in this hall and listened as Acca has told the stories of your gods – and I have laughed, for they are good stories. But listen well: stories are all they are. My God walked among us, and I can tell you when, and I can tell you where. The evil one thought he could kill him, but not even death could hold him, for he burst the gates of hell and rescued from eternal torment all those men who had lived before and died, hostage to the evil one. My God gives life, in this life and in the next, and he gives life to all who believe in him and call on his name.
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