Looking out to sea, Oswald spoke.
“Oswiu was four when Father was killed. I was twelve. I remember Dæglaf gripping me on the horse as we rode away from where they killed Father, me struggling, kicking, trying to get away, to get back to Father, until Dæglaf slapped me. ‘He’s dead,’ he said. ‘I will not let you die too.’ And he tied and trussed me like a slave and slung me over his horse. That was how I came back to you: tied up like a boar taken for the hunt.
“I saw your face when you heard the news, Mother. I saw your panic, your fear, your… relief. You were relieved that Father was dead.” Oswald looked to where sea touched sky and his mother made no answer. “I hated you then, for I saw him die as I had seen him fight, and I knew no king mightier nor more terrible.”
Acha remained silent. The sea answered, waves hissing upon the beach and withdrawing, sucking the sand and spitting it back up again.
“I remember the fear that gripped everyone, the panic as you gathered Oswiu and Æbbe to you and we rode north, always looking over our shoulders lest Uncle be behind us. We came to Dunadd, the stronghold of Dal Riada, and you left us waiting without its walls while you went within to speak with the king. Æbbe cried, asking if you would come out again, and Oswiu too, and I had no words for them; I thrust them away.
“I remember taking ship to Ulster, the cold of that journey and the colder welcome. We were passed from court to court, from kingdom to kingdom, like unwanted guests; we were treated better than lepers, but not by much. And I hated you the more, Mother, for you said nothing. You accepted the silence and the insults; you bore them all and shuffled us on to somewhere new where they could mock us, fatherless children of an alien land.
“And I remember when everything changed.” Oswald turned his gaze from the horizon and looked upon his mother and smiled. “We were on yet another curragh, sailing from Ulster back to Dal Riada, and for a mercy the wind was calm and we were dry. The boatmaster put me to row, but Oswiu was too little yet, and he and Æbbe were sleeping with you. I had not marked the other men on board when we set to rowing, for I was yet too wrapped in my anger, but as we plied the oars I saw they were dressed alike, in robes akin to those worn by the priests of the strange god that men worshipped in these island kingdoms. And as we rowed, they began to sing, long and low, chanting out in a strange tongue words I did not know, yet understood. Their chant entered into my rowing, and the music moved my hands and the words filled my heart; the bitterness that had filled me since Father’s death and our exile was gone and I looked about me with a hope and a joy I had not known – I had not even known I could know.”
Oswald’s smile came through tears now. “I said not a word on that voyage, but I swam in the sound of their singing, and when we landed, and their song was done, I asked whence they came and where they were going and what music they sang.
“‘Iona,’ they said. ‘The Holy Island of Colm Cille, where saints walk in the noon and angels tread by night.’ I knew then where I must go.” The ætheling put his hand to his mother’s shoulder. “I am sorry for the worry I must have caused you then, but I could not ask lest you forbid. I went with the monks when they took ship again at dawn, and as the sun set in the west I set foot for the first time upon the Holy Island, and voices upraised greeted me as I stepped off the boat, and a young man, seeing me standing upon the strand, entranced as one bewitched, took me by the hand and led me to the abbey whence the music flowed, and I stood in heaven, unmoving save for my tears.”
Oswald, ætheling, throne-worthy prince of Bernicia, the Whiteblade of Domnall Brecc, looked upon his mother, queen in exile, and spoke what was in his heart.
“I would give up the throne. I would put down my sword and put away my claim and be a monk of the Holy Island and there end my days. What say you?”
Acha took his face in her hands. As always, she committed him to memory, adding this face to all the others that she stored in her heart, ready for the day when they might be all that remained to her of her son.
“A fire burned in the sky when you were born, a fire that could be seen by day and night, and men said that it was a great sign. And I, looking at you in my arms, knew that they were right.
“You wish to lay aside your claim to the throne and enter the holy life, like your sister? More than anything, I would that this happen, that you might live and I not have to clean the blood from your wounds and wash your body for burial. Go to the Holy Island, my son, and ask them, beg them, to take you. Abbot Ségéne knows you well – he will not refuse, I am sure.”
Oswald smiled, his smile turning into a laugh. “You will not think me frightened?”
“No, never. How could I, who have seen you these many years?”
“It was the news you gave that decided me.”
Acha looked puzzled. “What news?”
“Of my brother Eanfrith. With Cadwallon and Penda ravaging the kingdom, if he had not returned to claim the throne I would, of need, have done so myself. But I will not fight my brother, and his claim is God’s sign that my heart’s wish is true: I will return to the Holy Island and ask the abbot to accept me as a monk.” Oswald laughed for pure heart’s joy. “Oh Mother, give me your blessing.”
“You have it, my son; you have it always.”
“Ark!”
They both started, then laughed together as the affronted shape of Bran alighted next to them upon the beach.
“He cannot sleep for the light,” said Oswald. “Come, let us return to the others. I must tell them my decision.”
“Wait.” Acha took his arm. “What about Oswiu? If you say that you intend to become a monk of the Holy Island, he may try to raise a warband himself – he is rash enough.”
Oswald put finger to mouth in silent thought.
“He will not raise a warband against Eanfrith. Half-brother though he is, he is still our brother. But he would ride first against Cadwallon and Penda, if he could. Therefore, we must delay him.” Oswald smiled. “Let me return to the Holy Island with him. I will say we go to ask Abbot Ségéne for his blessing and prayers, and for his intercession with the king of the Uí Neíll, and the kings of Dal Riada and Rheged and Strathclyde, that we might gather an army sufficient to meet and defeat Cadwallon and Penda. It is a long and difficult matter to get so many kings to agree, and it will take many months – time for Eanfrith to win Bernicia for himself. Once we have news that Eanfrith is secure upon the throne, then I can tell the whole of my mission to my brother, and with the ears of the kings of the Uí Neíll and Dal Riada, of Rheged and Strathclyde, I can ensure that Oswiu and his retainers have a land to go to and a king, ring giver, glory lord, to take their service and reward it.” Oswald turned back to his mother. “What do you think?”
Acha held up her arm and Bran flew to it, croaking inquiringly into her ear. Apart from Oswald, Acha was the only person Bran would fly to.
“Yes, let us go back.”
Chapter 3
“The abbot wants to see me?”
Brother Aidan straightened from the task of scraping clean the hide of a newly slaughtered calf. The beast was white, its skin without blemish, and it would provide four pages of the finest vellum for the scriptorium, as long as he did not damage it in preparation. It was the only task he was trusted with; Brother Fintan, the venerable monk in charge of the scriptorium, had tried Aidan on other duties, from preparing the materials used to make colours through to sharpening styli for the monks who did the copying, but with a sense of inevitability matched only by death, Aidan had found himself directed towards the smelliest and dirtiest job upon the Holy Island of Iona. Surrounded by the cloud of flies that buzzed about him as he did his work, and that followed him to the sea afterwards when he went to wash the blood and fur and fat from his hands and arms, the distracted monk drew his wrist across his forehead to wipe away the sweat, cursed for the realization that he had succeeded only in smearing offal over his face, and then remonstrated further with himself at the knowledge that, in cursing, he h
ad called upon one of the old pagan gods.
Brother Erraid, standing as far away from Aidan as was possible while still delivering his message, nodded. “He sent me to fetch you.”
“Are you sure he meant me?”
“Abbot Ségéne said, ‘Bring me Brother Aidan.’”
Aidan straightened further, a flush of his own blood adding to the redness of his face. “The abbot knows my name,” he said.
“Abbot Ségéne knows everybody’s name,” said Brother Erraid. “He also knows if he has been kept waiting.”
“Oh, yes, for sure.” Brother Aidan dropped the pelt he was working on and began picking his way through the fly-coated remains stacked around him.
Brother Erraid held up one hand and pinched his nostrils with the other. “You had better wash first. I will tell the abbot you are on your way.”
Gathering his robes around him, Brother Erraid made a hasty retreat to cleaner air, leaving Aidan to make his way to the little bay that served the double function of bath and mortification – although now, at high summer, the water was so mild that he had to stand in it for quite a long time before he lost the feeling in his limbs. In winter, the shock was so great that despite his every effort, he could not keep himself from bleating when it rose up over his bare flesh, and the mortification was all but immediate.
As the abbot had summoned him, Aidan walked straight into the water in his habit – the old, patched, stained one he used for his work – and scraped the blood and fat from his skin with handfuls of sand. Stripping off the habit, he left it draped over a rock to dry and put on the robe – clean if threadbare – that he wore when he joined the rest of the monks of the monastery at their divine work: the singing of the office of prayer. Dripping, but no longer rank, Brother Aidan gathered up his robes and scurried off in the same direction as Brother Erraid.
Barely acknowledging the salutations that followed him as he ran past the men working in the fields, Aidan hurried towards the cluster of low, whitewashed buildings with thatched roofs that marked the heart of the monastery of Colm Cille. The abbey church was naturally the largest building, big enough to take every monk upon the Holy Island but yet still not large enough to accommodate all the visitors when pilgrims came for Colm Cille’s day, to ask the saint for his blessings. Then, men stood gathered around the church, its doors flung wide, straining to catch the fragments of chant that floated from the building, lifting each other up to see when the Lord was upraised, behind the rood screen, for the profane, that they might glimpse him.
Alongside the church was the scriptorium, but at this season of the year it mainly lay empty; those monks trusted with taking and copying the sacred anew generally preferred to take their work into the daylight, where they might see it better. The only danger was from a sudden squall that might ruin a day’s work before it could be brought under cover, so to that end a monk was placed as look-out, watching west whence sudden storms came, armed with a handbell and a loud voice. Should clouds mass and rain threaten, he was tasked with giving sufficient warning that the writing monks might guard their work. Aidan had been given that job once. It had not passed well. The night prayer had been long, sleep short and the day warm. The first he knew of the storm was when it woke him. Brother Keils had sought Aidan out in the refectory later that day and dumped upon his lap a congealed mass of vellum, wrinkled and swollen.
“Three years’ work,” he had said.
Now Aidan preferred preparing the skins. At least if something went wrong no work was lost, only his time, and nobody missed that.
Approaching the church, Brother Aidan’s heart lurched: the abbot was standing, waiting, outside its door. Redoubling his effort, Aidan ran onwards, coming to a skidding stop just in time.
“A-Abbot S-Ségéne,” he panted. “You wanted to see me?”
The abbot held out his hand and Aidan kissed the ring upon his third finger.
“I wish words more than sight,” said the abbot. “Come, it is a pleasant day. Walk with me.”
Abbot Ségéne turned and headed off along one of the many paths that threaded through and around the monastery, heading towards the hill that stood above the monastery, windbreak and protector against winter storms. Brother Aidan walked a pace behind the abbot, reluctant to walk alongside him despite Ségéne’s efforts to slow down enough that he might catch up. In the end, when their progress had slowed to that of the clouds, the abbot stopped.
“Do you think your shadow carries some evil influence, Brother Aidan?” he asked.
“N-no, I don’t think so. Do you think it does?” Aidan added in sudden panic.
“No, I do not. Therefore, do not be afraid of casting it upon me; then we may speak and I may do so without creaking my neck.”
Putting his hands into his sleeves in the characteristic way Aidan had seen through his years in the monastery – he had come to it as a boy, in fulfilment of a vow made by his father – Abbot Ségéne moved on. Aidan started after him, treading on the machair as the abbot walked the path.
“Oswald, son of Æthelfrith, of the House of Iding and ætheling to Bernicia and Northumbria, is your friend, I believe?”
“Um, yes, I suppose he is, but I don’t really know why, Abbot Ségéne.”
“Don’t you?” The abbot looked at him sidelong. “Well, there are many reasons for friendship, some good, some bad. I shall leave you to discover, in time, the reasons for your friendship. But suffice to say, you are friends?”
“Er, yes, I think so. Through God’s grace.”
“Indeed. And I understand you accompanied Oswald and his brother when they sailed from here to the Isle of Coll this last seven day?”
“Yes, yes I did, Father Abbot.”
“Along with another.”
Brother Aidan blushed. “Y-yes,” he stammered.
“And upon reaching Coll, Oswald and Oswiu went to visit their mother?”
“Yes.”
“Did you accompany them?”
“Not at first, but then Oswald sent for me, that I might share meat with them.”
“As well it was not a day of fasting. When you were with them, what did they speak on?”
Brother Aidan licked his lips. “I – I do not know if they would want me to speak of this, Father Abbot.”
The abbot continued serenely on towards the hill of Iona. Aidan rushed to catch up with him.
“Your reticence does you credit, Brother Aidan, but as I understand it, no oaths were taken, no pledges given; thus you can speak without fear of fault.”
“They – they spoke about Northumbria, and their half-brother Eanfrith, and whether they should claim back their kingdom.”
“What reason did they give for not doing so?”
“Oh, Oswiu wanted to leave at once, but Oswald said he would not fight against his brother for the throne.”
“Oswald gave no other reason?” The abbot glanced sharply at Aidan as he spoke.
“No, Father Abbot, he did not.”
“Very well.” Abbot Ségéne fell silent but gave no indication that he wanted Brother Aidan to leave, so the young monk scurried along beside and slightly behind him as they began to climb up the gentle slope of the hill of Iona.
The abbot stopped before he reached the summit of the hill. On this, eastern, side of the hill they were sheltered from the wind, but Aidan could see, from the froth upon the wave tops, that a stiff wind blew intermittently from the west. Turning back upon the way they had come, Abbot Ségéne looked down upon the monastery, and to the Sound of Iona and the Isle of Mull beyond.
“It is a splendid sight, is it not?” he asked Brother Aidan without looking at him.
“I suppose it is.” Aidan had grown up among hills and lochs, in sight and sound of sea. What he saw now, from the hill of Iona, was what he had always seen.
“I come here when I have need of thought and there are too many brothers pressing upon me for word and judgment and counsel.”
Aidan, not knowing how to respond, rem
ained silent.
“So perhaps you can tell me why today Oswald Iding came alone into the abbey church and lay his sword before the altar?”
Brother Aidan stared at the abbot’s back. Maybe he had misheard Abbot Ségéne.
“He did not take it when he left,” the abbot continued.
No, he had not misheard.
Abbot Ségéne turned to face him. “And then he came to me and professed the wish to enter the monastery of Colm Cille and become a monk.”
Brother Aidan’s mouth opened and shut, but no sound came out.
“Have you anything to say on this, Brother Aidan?”
And slowly, Aidan’s mouth curved upwards and his eyes began to shine and, despite the fact that he stood before the abbot, he gave a great cry for the joy of such tidings.
“Father Abbot, that is – that is wonderful! Wonderful!”
“I was afraid you would think that. Have you encouraged Oswald in this wish?”
“He has never spoken of it to me, Father Abbot, but I have long thought that he is happiest in prayer. Is this not most marvellous?”
“No,” said Abbot Ségéne. “No, it is not marvellous at all.”
“I – I … Your pardon. Did you say it is not marvellous?”
“Yes, I did. We have spent many years forming Oswald and his brother, training them in faith and knowledge and understanding, even though they came to this Holy Island as pagans and enemies. King Domnall Brecc sent word to me, when they arrived at Dunadd, asking counsel: should he give refuge to these children of Æthelfrith, who slew so many of the saints at the battle where he defeated Gwynedd? It was like, he said, taking young vipers into your bed, that the warmth of your body might heat them until they had the strength to bite: for what else could one expect from an Angle other than treachery and evil? He was of a mind to kill them, and snuff out the Idings.
“But I forbade him. Our Lord too was exiled and abandoned. Besides, these æthelings were young, unformed. I sent message back, asking Domnall Brecc to send the young Idings to me. They came, rough and wild, like little eagles and as proud. Like hawks, they needed training, feeding, until they might fly and hunt for themselves. Like hawks, they needed hooding, until their sight was trained and their hearts remade. And like hawks, one responded to the training better than the other. But to Oswald we opened, through God’s grace, the path to life, and he, seeing it, took it, and took to it as well as any young novice I have seen. His brother too has entered upon the path, although I fear he is subject to more distractions than his brother.
Oswald: Return of the King Page 4