by Mark Coakley
Perhaps they have already won. Dearest Alcuin, please forgive what I must confess — the shock of my experiences has changed my character so much that I now embrace practices I once scorned. You know my life-long contempt for primitive superstition, the fanciful "magic" of ignorant peasants. Now, I am proved a hypocrite again, for at night, when it is time for me to rake up the coals in the fire in my room — I use the poker to scrape an "X" in the glowing ashes, in hopes that doing so will protect me from fire. I know that this archaic folk-ritual, a lingering remnant of paganism, is forbidden — yet doing so comforts me, and I have not strength to resist. Does that make me a heretic? Is my soul in a new hazard? Is attempting magic a venal sin or a mortal one? I have nobody but you to ask, my trusted oblate.
Bishop Higbold seems, as well, to have been changed by the disaster at Lindisfarne. He was once the most worldly of priests, notorious for his gaudy clothes and feasting, but he seems to have interpreted the disaster as a personal message from God. I am told that he now lives humbly, dressing in accordance with Chapter LV of Benedict's Rules — "Worry not about the colour or the texture of these things, but let them wear what can be bought most cheaply … It is sufficient to have two tunics and two cowls" — and I am told he now dines in full compliance with Chapter XXVI: "Let a pound of bread be sufficient food for the day … Let all except the very weak and the sick abstain altogether from eating the flesh of animals."
Bishop Higbold preaches, even to knights and King Aethelred himself, that the only effective defences are spiritual. I am told that he insists that no Christian should handle weapons of war, it is better to throw ourselves on Christ's mercy. He quotes a passage from Saint Paul, "When I am weak, then I am strong." He compares the north-men to a contagious disease, and asks if an epidemic can be avoided by flight or fought off with weapons?
"We declare that to be utterly foolish," I heard him say in the presence of King Aethelred and many knights. "None can escape the hand of God. None can predict their hour of reckoning. Doomsday comes to all as a thief in the night. So repent, take refuge in prayer, despise this world, hope only for Heaven."
Bishop Higbold's new-found piety has apparently not endeared him to King Aethelred or the nobility. I have heard rumours that Higbold may be forced from office and replaced by Aethelred's brother-in-law, Aelbert.
In short, all is confusion in Northumbria. Our land's people are used to political crisis, and to aggression from across the borders we share with Wessex and Scotland and Pictland, but this surpasses all. It is not only I who wonders, unceasingly, why did God make this happen? Was this divine retribution, for the slack morals of our people? Look at our King: until recently, he was known mostly for his evil habits and contempt for justice. Look at our politics: so many murders and rebellions and bribery and corruption and defiance of the Church. Look at our appearance: inspired by fashion, the popular hairstyles and clothes are both reckless and unholy. Look at our bishops, owning gold goblets and huge estates of land; look at our priests, wearing silk outfits and eating sugar with a spoon; look at some of our nunneries, those that mainly exist as a refuge for noble women abandoned by husbands or widowed; look at vagabond monks selling fake relics to the gullible; look at a population that claims to be Christian, yet rarely attends church other than for sickness-cures, weddings and funerals.
Did the sins of Northumbria invite this disaster?
Did my own?
Alcuin, I have need of your wise counsel, more than ever in the past. Despite hearing the (contradictory) assurances of King Aethelred and Bishop Higbold, I spend my nights wracked in fear of another attack of north-men, with wailing captives and sacred buildings pouring out flames, here at the Jarrow monastery. How can I assume safety here? What security can be found anywhere in England, if Saint Cuthbert could not protect his own temple? If the Second Coming is at hand, will I — most-guilty sinner — be left behind, as I deserve?
I often think about my devastated nunnery, and often my thoughts fill with a strange, melancholy notion. As you know, the walls of our church at Lindisfarne were made of stone that had been quarried from an ancient Roman ruin. I ponder how, before our race arrived here, this land was ruled by Romans, worshipping Roman gods. Then the Romans disappeared, leaving nothing but crumbling ruins behind. Could that happen to our society here? Was the attack on Lindisfarne merely the first drop of a great torrent that will someday wash away, forever, all that we know and cherish? Is that God's plan?
I feel lost and bewildered and heart-sore! With my sisters nearly all slaughtered or enslaved, I am so lonely! Sometimes I imagine the fate of Sister Wilthburga (who was my closest confidante) and the other captured girls and women, in some barbarous pagan land, suffering unspeakable indignities, and I shudder with the deepest of revulsion and regret! I feel unable to continue my duties to God, after such calamity and woe.
O, my friend, I need you here! You have been in Germany so long, with such distinction — serving the Church, advising King Charlemagne on a new education system, converting thousands of souls — that surely you have earned a rest. In the light of Northumbria's need for spiritual guidance in this most trying of times, and in light of my personal desire for you, could you not ask of His Holiness permission to return home, if only briefly?
More than anything, I yearn to clasp your strong hands, gaze into your eyes, and pour into your ears all of the troubles of my tormented soul. Alcuin, only you can save me from utter despair — please, return to Northumbria, and me!
If I were before you now, on bended knee and with floods of tears, my obvious and wretched need would compel your pity. Let not the distance between us keep your heart hard to my frantic appeal; let our shared past, our marriage of the spirit, draw you here with the speed of angels!
If your answer is negative, and you are unable to leave your evangelical duties to attend to a friend in distress, if all that we have shared is not enough to bring you briefly home, then at least offer your prayers for our people. Beg the All-Mighty Lord — as I beg you — from the fury of the north-men, deliver us!
Tetta
Translator's Note: If Alcuin wrote a reply, it has not been preserved. A letter from Bishop Higbold to Pope Hadrian (recently discovered in the Vatican library) suggests that Alcuin visited England in the fall of 793 or the spring of 794, returning to Germany after a few months. There is no evidence as to whether or not Alcuin and Tetta met during this time. No further correspondence between them has been uncovered to date.
Chapter 27
VENN'S REVENGE
The three loot-loaded ships sailed east over the horizon, the island sinking behind them, the red-orange glow of flames staining the cloudy western sky.
Leoba had been made to sit on the swaying deck of one of the strange, narrow ships. She and nine other nuns were tied together in pairs, back to back, sitting in the middle of Wave-Jumper's deck. They were surrounded by rowing men who grunted and jerked their bodies forward and back again and again as the long oars (along with the sail) sped the ships east.
Halfdan strongly disapproved of rape, so the English-women on Wave-Jumper were mostly left alone. The captives on the two other ships were not as lucky.
When the Norse raiding-fleet had rowed and sailed far enough away, the oars went onto the racks and Halfdan gave tasks to the Norsemen. Two of the fighters were told to guard the captives, to stop any of them from slipping their ropes and jumping into the sea. One man with skill in healing was told to care for hurt fighters first, then hurt captives. Other fighters gave food and cups of drinking-water to the men, then tried to pour water in the mouths of the tied-up women; most would not drink any, though all were thirsty. Venn and a few other fighters were told to count and organize the loot. It was messily piled on the rear of Wave-Jumper's deck. The loot would be divided equally when they got safely home.
Venn sat on the rear-deck, surrounded by piles of outlandish treasure, using a chisel to pry gems out of stolen items. He chiselled gems from cups, candle-ho
lders, "T"-shaped objects, frames and book-covers. The gems went in a small iron box, with each falling little stone making a clink! noise as it was dropped in. Except for the amber, the Norsemen had never seen gems like these before — red stones, green stones, glittering transparent ones; they were obviously very precious. The gems and the pieces of gold were the most exciting parts of the raid-profits. A fighter sitting near Venn separated the few gold items from the many made of silver, putting the gold in a leather bag. The silver and the women were much less valuable than the gold and gems.
As Venn worked, dropping gem after gem into the iron box, his mind swirled with confused, agonized thoughts. He could not think of only one thing at a time; his mind filled with wildly-flashing images — memories of the raid. Venn had seen many terrible things happen, to many innocent women. He had done bad things to them too. He remembered an English-woman who had refused to let him put a rope around her neck; wailing, weeping, she had cringed in a corner of a sleeping-room, slapping at Venn's hands whenever he reached for her. An officer had been watching. Venn had to do something. In panic, he had stabbed his spear into the babbling woman's belly. Watched her crumple to the floor. Watched the spreading red puddle. Watched the life in her eyes go away. The officer congratulated Venn, "doubt any of the other bitches will resist after seeing that! Good work!"
Venn saw many dead and dying women as he ran around, following orders. They were lying all over the settlement, many with clothes ripped off — pale arms and legs and fear-twisted faces, lit by the glow of burning buildings.
Venn winced at the memories, and his lips moved silently as he tried to explain his actions to the voices he heard, always heard, over the continuous clanging noise in his ears.
The memories that stabbed into his mind were not all bad. Venn smiled in the darkness when thinking about Haki. Sten had found his berserker cousin, dead from stabs to his face and neck, in a building where Haki had been left alone with a girl. The girl was not in the room when Haki was found, but she had been caught later and recognized by Sten. Although Venn had hated Haki, and was happy to learn of his end, many other raiders — especially Sten and Halfdan — were shocked and saddened. When all the captives had been roped together neck-to-neck, and all the buildings searched for valuables, Halfdan told men to pull Haki's pants on and drag the heavy body from its killing-place to the big, stone-walled building. Haki's body was taken into the big, crazily-decorated room, now empty of treasure. One of the other buildings had been full of odd items made of thin sheets of beast-skin, decorated and stitched together in piles; a captive had explained that these odd-looking things recorded facts (like Norse runes carved in wood or bone) and were called "books". Haki's body had been placed on a big pile of books in the middle of the stone-walled, metal-roofed building. Chanting a traditional death-poem, Halfdan had opened a clay jar full of a strange-smelling yellow oil. He had poured all the oil over Haki and the pyre, then had touched a torch-tip to the oil-soaked books. Fire crawled across the pages. Before the thick smoke had forced the crowd of Norsemen to leave the building, the books burst into swirling flames and the flames reached up to Haki, soon blackening the bare skin and making a sizzling noise that Venn now remembered with joy. Haki was the only raider who had been killed or seriously hurt; his famous luck had finally betrayed him; Venn grinned wider; the berserk bully was now only splattered grease and ashes, far from his place of birth.
Another nice memory from the raid — Venn had found four cages in a room, each with a small, eagle-like bird trapped inside. The birds had ribbons hanging from their scaly legs. Venn had opened each of the cages and had watched, smiling, as the hunting-birds rose into the smoke-filled sky.
"You are free," he had whispered, with envy, as the eagle-like birds flew away.
As Venn and the other raiders now did their tasks, and the full red-and-white sails sped them homewards, Halfdan questioned the captives, one by one. He still wore the odd horned helmet. Most of the nuns refused to talk to him. Some tried but were too scared to make sense. When Halfdan crouched in front of Leoba, she was the only one who faced him and met his eyes and showed little fear.
Halfdan said, "You killed my friend."
Leoba — her thick accent sounding very odd to Halfdan — said, "I was protecting myself."
Halfdan said, "From rape?"
She nodded.
Halfdan said, "Killing him did you no good; you still ended up here, heading for a life of slavery, as fate has decided. You should have just let him have his way, and I'd have punished him when I found out."
"I'm a virgin."
Halfdan said, "Is that why all you women were living there together? You couldn't find husbands?"
"I have a husband: Christ."
Halfdan rolled his eyes and said, "I don't want to hear any more about Christ. You English-folk babble so much about your gods that you all sound crazy."
"Our God is real and powerful, not like your filthy pagan idols."
"'Pagan'?"
"Somebody who is ignorant of true religion. A doomed soul."
Halfdan sneered, "Our gods are stronger than yours. If yours were stronger, they would have stopped the raid. Call your Christ to help you now. Call for his mother, his father, his cousins and father-in-law too — where are they now?"
"This is all happening with God's will."
"If it was his will for Haki to rape you, why did you resist?"
Leoba said nothing, staring down at the oak deck.
Halfdan said, "The strongest god is Odin. We don't build temples for him — his temples are battle-fields, and his sacrifices are the unlucky dead. I would never call on him for help in danger, because he doesn't care if we live or die. He is far away, does not care about our thoughts or feelings, and sometimes Odin goes berserk. He poked out one of his own eyes, hoping it would give him wisdom. With the eye he has left, Odin watches folk from the sky — not out of love, but only for his amusement. He likes to see bravery and bloodshed and any kind of slaughter."
"And you can love a god like that?"
"Love? Of course I don't love Odin. He is crazy, mean and distant. He doesn't expect our love. Like I said, Odin doesn't care about how we feel down here — just how we act."
Halfdan started questioning Leoba about the military and political situation in Northumbria. Unlike the other nuns, Leoba was both well-informed about such issues and calm enough to answer his questions.
After Halfdan had learned enough, he said, "You are different from the other girls. What's your name?"
"Leoba."
Halfdan said, "I am Halfdan of Os."
Leoba said, "Are we really going to be sold as slaves in your land?"
"I haven't decided about you, but all the other English-women will definitely be sold."
"What about me?"
"You might become a slave. But after a successful raid, our gods like it when we drown at least one captive in our sacred swamp. Since you killed my friend, maybe I will choose you for that." Halfdan stood, said, "Thanks for answering my questions," and started walking away.
Eyes suddenly full of fear, Leoba said, "Wait!"
Halfdan turned. "What?"
Leoba, desperate to talk her way out of danger, said, "You look different from the others. Where are you from?"
"Norway."
"Why are you so dark, then?"
He briefly explained his parentage.
Leoba said, "Have you met any other Nubian people?"
"Just my mother. And I know nothing about her but what old folk say."
"What do you know about Nubia?"
"It's far to the south and everybody is dark-skinned there."
Leoba said, "I know a lot more than that. I've studied geography and I know exactly where Nubia is."
Halfdan crouched again in front of her.
"So, tell me something interesting about Nubia."
"Only if you promise to set me free."
"Fine."
"Let me hear you promise.
To your gods."
"I vow by all the gods that, if you tell me something interesting about Nubia, I'll set you free."
"Set me free when we reach land. Not here."
She glanced over the side of the ship. Choppy waves of blue-grey water stretched to the horizons in all directions.
Halfdan grinned. "Clever girl. Fine — I vow by all the gods that, if you tell me something interesting, I'll set you free when we reach land."
"How do I know what you'll find interesting?"
"You don't. But I'm honest. So start talking or the deal's off."
Leoba took a deep breath and said, "Have you heard of Germany before?"
"Yes."
"South of Germany is a land called Frankia. South of Frankia is a land called Italia. South of Italia is a sea. South of this sea is a land called Egypt. South of Egypt is Nubia. Both Egypt and Nubia are part of the continent of Africa. Africans are dark-skinned, and the farther south one goes, the hotter it gets and the darker the people. Dark skin seems to protect people from the sun's heat. According to Pliny, the —"
"Is 'Pliny' another of your gods? Christ's uncle?"
"Pliny wrote books. He wrote that the sun in Africa is so strong that it burns light skin, but not dark skin. What I know about Nubia, I learned from books like Pliny's, and from maps — pictures of lands that show you how to get there."
"There are maps in England showing how to get to Nubia?"
"There were maps in the place you raided. With the books. The maps were burned with your dead rapist friend."
Halfdan scowled. "Tell me more about Nubia."
Leoba said, "I have read of amazing animals found in Nubia. Cats as big as bears, horses with necks much longer than this ship, giants pigs that float in rivers, other giant pigs with a shell on the back like a turtle and a horn growing from the nose, and real dragons."
"What about the folk?"
Leoba took a deep breath. "Nubia is a Christian land," she said.