by Rebecca Tope
One of the old women coughed again and croaked, ‘She wants to know if he’s ripe for breeding,’ she said, loudly, reaching over to dig a horny fingertip into my ribs. ‘But she’s too nice to say it right out.’
There was a still moment of pure shock. Cuthman’s colour drained away, and he went rigid. An instinctive hand covered his cock, and the other tried to pull his clothes tight round himself. Then he began to scramble to his feet, looking round for an escape. But he remembered me, and a look of terrible helplessness crossed his face. He could do nothing in haste, because of his obligations to me.
‘Come, Mam,’ he said, his voice tight. ‘We will not stay here.’
‘You will, though,’ said the woman, and made a sudden crowing call, Ay-ay-ayeeee, rather like Wynn had called the heifer, when she wandered too far onto the moors.
Like blue ghosts, women appeared on all sides. Three came from the big hut; two from the same gap in the fence that we had entered by; and across towards the south ramparts I could see five more, strung out as they hurried down a slope to where we were. The woman called again, and I saw a door open in the high wall to the east, and a crowd of women and girls poured through as we watched. We made no attempt to move, not so much intimidated by the numbers, as by the strangeness of their instantaneous and silent approach. As if well practised, they formed a circle around us, and began to close in, until they were tightly shoulder-to-shoulder.
Enthia spoke to them in a language I did not understand, and indicated Cuthman. They listened carefully, a few of them smiling, others looking apprehensive. The latter were mostly the younger ones, girls scarcely into their bleeding years. The old woman’s words, which had first moved us into this new situation, helped me to guess what was being said. It was both appalling and fascinating. I looked round at the circle of female faces, perhaps thirty of them, and tried to make sense of what I saw. There were many likenesses - four of them had the same hair to colour of autumn leaves, another four were all of the same short round shape. Never had I heard tell of a place where only women dwelt, yet I began to be sure that there were no men here. Another slow inspection showed me that not one of the women was with child. We had heard childish voices, but no crying babies. The land around this extraordinary place was oddly empty. No shepherd or hermit, no missions or hamlets, despite the fertility of the land and its signs of former dense occupancy. Either it was bewitched, casting a blight across the country, or it was an unsafe spot to live for other reasons.
I sighed, with a sense of resignation. Cuthman and I had wandered freely into this den of female lions. We had no choice now but to endure whatever fate they had in store for us. If they needed Cuthman for breeding, then so be it. There were worse fates that could befall a young man.
‘Do not resist,’ I said to Cuthman, trying to give him a comforting pat. He stepped away from me as if I was merely another of these predatory women. ‘They will not hurt you. I think I see what their plan for you is.’
‘I am not theirs to make plans for,’ he snarled, and I noticed, with a moment of amusement, that his voice was deep enough for any woman’s reassurance. ‘I belong to the Lord, body and soul, and I am vowed to remain pure.’
This came as a new thought to me, despite my recent experience of Christian men. It was so far from nature, and so essentially ridiculous, that I had never associated it with my own son. Sexual coupling was impure in their eyes. Only with the binding permission of God, and the public promises of a marriage, was it tolerable. Yet here were heathen women in considerable numbers, all apparently expecting to make free with his maleness. I bit my lips against the flippant response I was tempted to give him.
I turned to the woman who was evidently the leader. ‘You will most certainly find this difficult,’ I warned her. ‘Best to let us go.’ I had been intending to add ‘quickly’ to my words, but I recalled the promise of broth and cheese and was wise enough to desist. ‘Besides, it is ungodly,’ I added, afraid that Cuthman might think me disloyal.
‘Take him to the temple,’ the woman ordered, ignoring me entirely. Five or six of the women laid hands on my son, and although he turned and twisted, he did not kick or hit out at them. He had his eyes closed, and his lips moved. Praying, I realised, and believed that I had done well to warn the woman. There was little prospect of any new infants from my obdurate boy. He would see it as a test from God, just as Jesus was taken up the mountain and tempted by Satan. Indeed, I could see that there were unmistakable parallels in what was happening to him.
They took him away, leaving me and the two old woman. I called after Cuthman, ‘I cannot help you, son, but I will wait until they allow you to leave.’
‘Pray for me,’ he shouted over his shoulder, and my heart jumped then, with fear and pride and excitement.
Chapter Fifteen
I did not see my son again that day. I felt bereft and unreal without him. I wanted to make sure of his safety, and yet I knew he had far more courage and strength than I did. He was also under the eye and hand of his God, and was therefore quite sure of being safe. He knew that whatever might befall him was God’s intention. God would give him all the power and conviction he needed, while at the same time testing his determination. I told myself these things, over and over, as I was given food and warm wrappings and a soft bed of sweet hay.
I did not see Enthia again, either. Another woman of much the same age and stature came to be with me, and we talked together. She also had a strange accent, and was harder to understand because she spoke quickly. I asked her to give an account of the place and its significance.
‘It has long been called the Maiden Castle,’ she told me, with a laugh. ‘Countless centuries before this it was occupied by many other folk as well as maidens, like any ordinary village. When you scratch the ground, or climb down into the ditches, there are old bones and pots and tools from long, long ago. It makes a natural home for people who love to be up high, in the fresh wind, with a view across the wide country.’
‘Then who fashioned the strange pathway up to the gate?’
She shrugged. ‘Those who wished to be safe here,’ she replied. ‘We have tried to keep it clear, for its strangeness and beauty. But we have other ways to be safe now. And without men with swords and buckets of boiling pitch, there is little to prevent entry.’
I thought of myself and Cuthman creeping slowly and confusedly in, and nodded my agreement.
‘There is a temple?’ I asked, nodding towards the eastern wall.
‘That is what is of greatest importance here now,’ she said. ‘We have made the eastern part a holy place. Behind that wall, all belongs to the Goddess. Nothing is the same over there.’
‘May I see?’
She nodded briefly. ‘One day,’ she said, and I realised that she would have to await instruction on that matter. Perhaps it depended upon the performance of my captive son.
As I had guessed, there were more signs of life and activity as the day wore on. Doors were pushed open on some of the sturdier huts and women emerged, stretching and quiet. They were mostly old and slow, and had taken no notice of Enthia’s call to come and capture Cuthman. But a little after noon they stirred and began to make more noise. It was a grey day, clouds crouching heavily above us and a dampness on everything, although it didn’t rain. The broth we had been promised several hours ago was gradually prepared, from roots and fat mutton strips, thickened with oatmeal. It seemed to me that the sun would have set before it would be ready to eat.
My new friend, who said her name was Gunda, sat with me, content to remain silent when there was nothing further to say. I was not in a mood for chatter, and could scarcely think of more questions to ask. The dankness in the air and the wide high place quelled my spirit, so all I could do was sit close to the smouldering fire and hope that Cuthman was not being tormented by his captors.
A long time passed, waiting for something to change, or for some news to come from beyond the wall. The dog which had come to meet us that mo
rning was cuddled against me now. I have always been easy and loving with dogs, and I was reminded of my own old favourite, dead a year or more by that time. This one had long bony legs and a sharp muzzle, which it used to nudge its way under my elbow and get even closer. I laid a hand against its thin ribs, and made it my companion.
‘They will not hurt him?’ I said at last to Gunda, feeling it a weakness in me to ask.
She smiled, not quite kindly. ‘No, they’ll do him no harm,’ she said. ‘But he may find himself sore by the month’s end.’
‘He will not do it,’ I warned her. ‘They can never make him.’
‘His will cannot help him,’ she replied. ‘We have potions to take away his will. Your son is simply a tool now. It brings no shame to him. He need never think of it again, after you leave.’
‘And I have guessed rightly? You wish him to sire new children? He is scarcely more than a child himself.’
‘We do not choose who comes here. He will do as well as any.’
‘How many - ?’
‘No more than a score. We need keep him just a month - or less. Our menses mostly happen around the same few days. We have time to prepare him. The time of real activity begins a sennight hence, or thereabouts. At the full moon.’
‘He will resist,’ I repeated. ‘And nothing can keep him here a full month. We are on a pilgrimage.’
She looked amused at that. ‘Oh aye? Where might you pilgrims be going to, then?’
I wriggled at that, and began to fuss the dog. ‘Eastwards,’ I muttered, feeling foolish.
She laughed aloud. ‘Of course. Christians always look to the east. Where their great Sun god rises, and their new Jehovah in the sky sits watching them.’
‘No sun god,’ I corrected, horrified at what Cuthman would think of that. ‘The loving God, the only true God. He sees into our hearts and knows our deepest thoughts.’ The words came trite and unconsidered to my lips. There was no feeling attached to them, nothing in my depths which echoed that they were indeed true.
‘He!’ she spat, triumphant and mocking. ‘What good is that to us? What man can understand the needs of our hearts? Can you tell me that?’
And again I remembered the furious monk, accusing me of arousing him, invoking his punishing God to cleanse me of my wickedness.
‘There have always been gods, as well as the Goddess.’ I began to grow angry. ‘Besides, you said yourself that the east is holy. It is where you situate your own temple.’
She inclined her head in mute acknowledgment. ‘And yet you have it wrong,’ she said. ‘There is the Goddess above all others. Beyond and before them, every one. The very land shows us.’ And she swept her arm in a wide arc, indicating the hills and pastures all around us, with the swelling rises like a woman’s belly, and the sharper humps of young breasts. I could see it all as she intended me to, despite my clouded vision and my Christian raising. There was nothing of men out there, but the stumps of cut trees and the bones of fallen warriors.
‘But - ‘ I gave it up before I’d properly started. I could never argue on such matters. Christianity was our bounden duty, from the day of our baptism. We had to follow its decrees, whether we liked it or not. Ordinary country people might retain their old ways alongside the newer faith, and enjoy a moment’s defiance of the Commandments, but these women on this hill fortress were committing untold wickedness, and I shuddered to think of it.
I tried to find safer matter for us to discuss. ‘Your music - ,’ I began. ‘We heard the singing.’
‘Moon music,’ she said. ‘We sing the moon back from its waning. And we sing the gardens into blossom, the sheep into bearing good lambs.’ She stopped, and laughed. ‘You will discover it all while you are here. And I think at the month’s end, you will not want to leave. Tell me now, about your damaged back.’
So I recounted the story of Cuthman’s birth, and the searing pain. The gradual recovery until the miracle beside my little straw house, when I was close to cured. And then how Edd’s dead weight brought it back again, and since that time I had not been right. And I told her about my cart and Cuthman’s penance.
She stopped me there. ‘Penance and pilgrimage! Great Christian ideals, both of them. Penance for being born, is it?’
I looked straight into her face. ‘That, perhaps, but he feels he brought about his father’s death. By committing a sinful act.’
‘Oh?’ She read my expression and understood. ‘Oh!’ And she laughed louder than ever, her head thrown back, mouth wide, as women seldom laughed, for fear they should seem immodest or uncontrolled. Though I was reminded for a moment of my mother against the hut wall with my uncle thrusting into her. It was an accidental witnessing that had tainted my early years more than I cared to admit.
‘Well,’ Gunda spluttered. ‘The Goddess has surely brought us a challenge this time.’
I could not resist an echoing smile of my own. Something felt free inside me for the first time since Edd and I had set off up onto the moors with a few sticks of goods and a handful of sheep. Free and bad, all at once. Disloyal and yet right.
‘And how does your back feel now?’ she pursued the questioning. ‘And where is your cart?’
‘It feels stiff, but there is little pain now. I walk a little, but slowly and bent. I must ride, if we are to reach the place that Cuthman seeks before he grows old. He will know it when we reach it.’
‘And this is not it?’
‘No, Gunda. This is quite certainly not it.’ And we both laughed until I felt ashamed of myself.
Night fell soon after I had consumed two full bowls of the broth. My belly hurt with the fullness, and I became drowsy and unable to speak properly. Gunda helped me to the ditch which was the latrine, and then made me comfortable on my bed of hay. ‘Tonight you will sleep, while we have our singing and such,’ she said. ‘But we will not waken you before noon tomorrow, so you will be fresh for the next night. We will have much to show you, then. And have no worries for your boy. He is being well fed and rested, on duck’s feathers and good linen. For many days he will be treated like a king.’
I dreamed of my son wearing a crown like the rays of the sun, great golden dogs at his feet and steaming piles of roasted meat on platters before him. But the woman who served him had the same terrible face as the woman in the hermit’s pool; the murderer of my son in my earlier dream. She had followed me here, and I believed, in my dream, that I would never escape her. She would always be with me, until I allowed her into my heart, and listened to her message. Even then, I would fear her, and the harm she would do me. And once again, she was poisoning Cuthman, and seeking to bring about his death.
As promised, Gunda took me through the door in the wall at dusk the next day. I stepped through, and into a different world. Although still not fully springtime, there were flowers and bright grass. Evergreens such as ivy and yew grew lush and glossy, and wooden huts nestled against the dividing wall, well tended and weathertight. In an open grassy area stood a small temple, square with an open pillared walkway set all around it. The wood was delicately carved and painted with flowers and leaves. ‘They have your son in there,’ Gunda nodded. ‘As comfortable as can be.’
‘Can I go to him?’ I asked, with little hope.
My guide shook her head. ‘He sleeps mostly. When he wakes, he is given good food and rich drinks of milk and mead. He wants for nothing, I assure you.’
‘Except his freedom,’ I fretted, anxious now that I was so close to him. It was plain to me that he would be angry that he was shut away like an animal. Angry and defiant and utterly determined not to yield to the women who imprisoned him.
‘It is just for a little while,’ Gunda soothed. ‘And most men would surely envy him.’
‘I would think otherwise,’ I responded, tartly. ‘Or you would have a line of them at your gate, all waiting their turn.’
‘Our reputation as heathens discourages them,’ she explained, seriously. ‘And their priests threaten them with damnation i
f they come close. Even the shepherds send their wives and daughters to fetch in the sheep or move them to fresh pastures when they stray too close to our ramparts. Which is how we manage to steal so many of them when we feel the need,’ she giggled.
Yet another Commandment broken, I noted. Sheep stealing was both a crime and a sin where I came from, rarely worth the risk of terrible punishment.
A distance from the temple, set against the southern edge of the fortress, was a large low building with a wide open door. Girls and women were assembling close by it, and beginning to go inside. I calculated that it was close to the point where Cuthman and I had first approached the walls, and from where we could hear the strange singing, two days earlier. Gunda led me along a neat stone-paved path, the stones all cut and shaped so their natural bluish-white interiors were exposed, and set in patterns along the length of the path. Everything was decorated in some way. The roof of the meeting hall had a thatch of woven grass and fine boughs, criss-crossed in an intricate design. But as a wind sprang up and gusted along the length of the hilltop, I saw how the eastern wall sagged, because there were scarcely any foundations to the building. A year of neglect and abandonment and the whole structure would blow away as if it had never been.
I leaned on Gunda’s arm, as my back grew tired, and thought wistfully of my cart. Next day, I would ensure that it was made safe in some way, so that when we left, it could serve its usual purpose.
All the heads turned towards me as I entered the hall. I recognised the girls with autumnal-hued hair, and saw Enthia immediately, standing on a low platform with two other women. She nodded to me, friendly, but as if she had more pressing matters on her mind. Most of the girls were sitting cross-legged on the floor, and chatting between themselves. On shelves and ledges there were displays of flowers and woven baskets, a great profusion which seemed to have no purpose but to please the eye. Pieces of carved yew and woven hangings were fastened to the walls. The hall was lit with rushlights and candles made from muttonfat, and smelled of earth and grease and an aromatic oil I had never encountered before. I sat in a dim corner, with a piece of matting under me. Nobody was bothering to stare at me any more.