The View From the Cart

by Rebecca Tope

  Or so I believed. Cuthman had spoken of building a church and spreading the Christian faith. The picture in my mind was of something comfortable and loving, settled and secure. I had allowed myself to forget the struggles I had seen between people of different faiths. I had seen my son call lightning onto the women of Maiden Castle, and drenching humiliation on the people who had planned to sacrifice him. He could not endure mockery, and would punish those who would not take him seriously.

  ‘Come, then,’ he said, and took up the worn handles of my cart. The sun was past its high point, and our shadows fell before us, short at first, but lengthening as we travelled. To the south, the wide ocean glittered, and we kept to the crest of the hill, following a path worn by sheep and their keepers, passing a great and ancient fortress, no longer inhabited or defended, although there were signs of fires and burials from not too long before. ‘It will be used again,’ said Cuthman, dreamily, as if glimpsing the future. ‘The battles for this land are not yet done.’

  Battles were distant and foolish events, to my thinking. They left their miserable legacies, in the mourning mothers, and fearful changes when a new King sought to make his mark on the people. But life persisted, with disease and hunger, birth and death, the harvests and the festivals, and the struggles were forgotten so much sooner than the dying soldiers could have imagined. Lost in such thoughts, admiring the beauty of the rolling land around us, with rivers and standing water and dense forest stretching northwards, I was slow to notice that we had stopped. The ground fell away below us, to a great sea inlet, a cluster of huts around a wharf and a stretch of cultivated land behind them. Orchards, bright grassland, cattle, sheep and fowls.

  ‘There!’ Cuthman crowed, his arm outstretched. ‘That is the place.’

  It should have excited me, given me a thrill of pleasure and relief. The place had great beauty, and evident prosperity. There was a motley group of boats tied up at the wharf, and I could make out movement as an oxcart carried goods along the coast to the south. I had a vision of Cuthman, pushing his helpless mother in a battered barrow, descending the hill into this contented settlement and changing it forever. The people who saw us now, arriving from out of the sky, the setting sun behind us, would never forget the moment. The story would be told down the generations of how the great Saint Cuthman appeared one summer evening and chose their little hamlet for his work. For I could not doubt that these people were at my son’s mercy, and that his work amongst them would be a great thing. I was less sure that in their place I would have welcomed him.

  As it happened, the whole community became aware of us, that very evening. As we approached, we could see and hear a collection of people dancing to drumming and piping, in a cleared area a little to the north of the dwellings. They reminded me so powerfully of our previous encounter with dancing villagers that I trembled. Instead of a May Pole in their midst, these people had a great standing stone, as tall as three men standing on each other’s shoulders. It was painted with symbols, and a variety of objects lay at its base - gifts, no doubt, to the god of the stone.

  ‘Pagans!’ breathed Cuthman, as if this was his greatest hope. ‘Stone-worshippers. Lord God, hear me. Before I die, that stone shall be carved into Your Holy Cross, and will stand close by the door of Your Holy Church. All these people will be baptised in the font that I shall make, and fill with Your Holy Water. This is my solemn vow, made before You.’

  He left me, then, the cart at such an angle that I had to cling tight to prevent an ungainly slide onto the ground, and strode towards the people. In his tattered tunic, feet bare, hair long and matted, a wispy boyish beard on his chin, he presented a strange figure, more like a crazed hermit than a God-sent missionary. Then, breaking from the circle of people, came an even stranger form. Strange and yet powerfully familiar. A short woman with a head larger than it should have been. Grey wispy hair formed a halo, further enlarging her head. She walked fast, meeting him at a point not too distant from my cart. Being so near-sighted, I could see no detail until she came closer.

  Fear made me crouch in the tipped-up barrow, hoping to go unnoticed. Cuthman dwindled in my sight as he faced the woman and recognised her as I had already done. Dark skin, broken blackened teeth, and a great wen, the size of a finger joint, on the bridge of her nose – all slowly came into focus. It was the woman we had seen in the hermit’s pool, and who had visited my dreams from that day on. She had seemed to us powerful then. Now she was more than powerful, more than just another pagan witch leading her people in the adoration of a stone. She was a force, like the wind or the thunder, and I knew in that moment that Cuthman was at war with her. A war that could only end with the destruction of one or other of the adversaries.

  But there are many ways of knowing. Nothing was said of battles or killings. The woman looked towards me, and said, in a deep ringing voice, ‘Bring your relative out of her discomfort, boy. Have you no respect?’

  And Cuthman did her bidding. He came back to me, and lifted me clear of the barrow. He set me on my feet, and straightened my skirts. My stiff back would not allow me to stand fully upright, but I did my best, resisting the temptation to withdraw and let Cuthman deal with whatever came at us. It was a moment of great magnitude, and I wished to do it justice. And I did not wish to forego what might happen next and thus find myself dismissed as being of no further importance. This place would be our home henceforward, and Cuthman would cease to be a wandering mendicant, pushing his mother in a barrow for penance. If the mother did not take care, she would find herself forgotten in the new period of Cuthman’s life.

  It seemed, however, that the woman was equally resolved on my place in events. She continued her rapid walk until she was facing me. She was so short that even in my bent state, our faces were on a level. She stared into my eyes, probing wordlessly for my soul. A confusion of feelings roiled within me. Fear of her power, distaste at her ugliness, outrage at her intrusion. But also a reverence for something which caught me deep inside myself. Woman to woman, we stared, and I could smell the tang of birth fluids, the awful sick sweetness of death and the hot life-giving savours of roasting meat, all coming from her together. I could hear the steady beat of her heart, as an unborn child must hear its mother’s throbbing pulse.

  ‘Mother!’ Cuthman spoke sharply, close by my shoulder, bringing me to the present world again. I looked at him, blank and lost.

  ‘Your mother has travelled far,’ crooned the woman, laying a hard calloused hand on mine. ‘It cannot have been comfortable riding in such a vehicle.’ She cast a sneering glance at the barrow, tainting much of what I had imagined I felt about our journeyings.

  ‘We were forced to it,’ said Cuthman, in a young voice, anxious to explain himself.

  ‘So you might think,’ she shrugged, bobbing her heavy head. ‘I have no time for all that now. As you see, we have our ceremony to attend to. You can join us,’ she invited, showing broken teeth in a broad grin.

  ‘We have learned to be wary of such ceremonies,’ I said, laughing a little. My fear was fast ebbing away, to be replaced by a rising excitement at what lay before us in this village. I could feel a new life beginning for me, where I might no longer need to rely on my son. Already our long walk seemed like a dream, fading fast behind me. We had arrived now, and I was eager to make real the idea of ‘Home’, in this lovely place. I let the woman leave us, with a little wave of understanding exchanged between the two of us.

  Cuthman sensed my betrayal. ‘Mother!’ he said again. ‘There is no amusement to be found in all this. These people are heathen, and I am here to do the Lord’s work amongst them. It will be a hard struggle, with that - sorceress - poisoning all the people’s minds. I command you to keep away from her. She will entice you into an evil friendship which you would come to most deeply regret.’

  ‘You may be right,’ I assured him, easily. ‘But before you begin your work of conversion, might we find a place to live? There is space enough for a good new hut, and it may be th
at if you make no mention of the Lord until we have lived here a time, we can become accepted by the people.’

  ‘I must build my church in the summer months that remain to us. Our own home must be a makeshift thing until the work is done.’

  ‘Are you so confident that the villagers will permit you to bring a church here? They seem contented as they are.’

  ‘They need have nothing to fear,’ he said, his gaze falling on the dancing crowd. In unison they all raised their arms to the great standing stone and shouted out some indistinct words. ‘Nothing but the damnation and soul-sickness that comes from such practice as that.’

  Desperately, I clung to my good cheer at having ceased our wanderings. It was a struggle to subdue the sensations of alarm at the divisions I already saw ahead of me. Cuthman would force me to make my choice between him and the village woman, who I fancied stood in a position of authority over her community. I would find myself caught between his invisible Lord God in the heavens and the throbbing realities of the gods who inhabited the stones and the fields and the glittering seas of this place. Everything that I had heard and seen and done in my life had been leading me to this day and from them to all those remaining days of my life. The loneliness and helplessness of the cart came back to me. The worst times had been those long days and weeks of jolting over rough ground, forming a comical tableau for all who encountered us, going short of food and sleeping in the cold and damp. The best times had been when we ran amongst other people - the women of Maiden Castle, for all their madness, had been good to listen to and laugh amongst. The brief glimpses we had had of monasteries and abbeys, the settled, ordered life with a role for all and a steady purpose, had attracted me, although they were ruled by men and the matters in life which men find important. Had I changed so greatly, then, I wondered. Where was the young wife, content to settle on the empty moor with only a single man and a pair of dogs for company? That old version of myself had vanished, leaving a very different woman in her place. Now, I discovered, I wanted to be amongst the noise and merriment of people like these coast-dwelling Saxons. If my son had intended to found a monastery here, I might have been content to act as his servant, and to follow the precepts of his man-centred doctrines.

  But his plan was to erect a church, where the people must come to worship and be baptised. He would become the priest, for all his lack of learning, and would address his flock, just as Christ Jesus had done. If they refused to listen to him, if they left his church empty and forgotten, what then would become of me?

  ‘Come, then,’ he said, taking my arm. ‘We must choose the position, before darkness falls.’ He walked me down a gentle slope, to where a well-trod path ran. We crossed the path and turned left to follow a grassy bank which rose in front of us. The land lay in folds to the north, rising and falling, crossed by pathways and small streamlets feeding the great river that ran down to the sea. Close by there stood a woodland of stout oaks, beeches and elms that climbed steadily to the higher ground. There would be no shortage of timber for the building Cuthman planned.

  Just as the light faded, he announced his decision. A knoll, sloping sharply away to the west and north, with a pond standing at its foot to the west, seemed to invite a building. I was reminded of many a fort or ruined villa on just such a spot, seen during our travels. Indeed, I felt a mild surprise that nothing had so far been situated there.

  ‘I claim this spot,’ Cuthman announced, to the empty air. ‘Here there will be a Holy Church. And here we will remain this night.’

  I looked around. The only shelter was a small knot of thorn trees, near the top of the knoll. Sighing, I reconciled myself to another night in the open, crouched like an animal on the hard cold earth.

  ‘We have not eaten this day,’ I reminded him.

  Impatient, he waved this aside. If he could have his way, he would wave away the night, too, so as to make a start on his scheme. What mattered food at such a great moment?

  It seemed that our first day in our new home was of mixed quality. After my relief and excitement, this lack of ceremony in our sleeping place was sorely disappointing. With considerable vexation, I tried to prepare myself for the night to come.

  ‘What?’ came a voice, deep and gurgling with suppressed laughter. ‘Is this how our great Saviour treats his parent?’

  Cuthman made no response, and I could not see the source of the voice. Though I knew well enough who it was. I could also smell fresh bread and smoked meat.

  ‘We have no fear of what you may bring here,’ she went on, with some sternness. ‘We treat our visitors well, and have no reason to treat you differently. Come away, and eat with us. We can find you better beds than this chill ground, if that would please you.’

  I was on my feet in a flash. I could see her now, standing down the slope a little way, her outline against the deep blue sky like that of a hobgoblin. Cuthman made no move, but he spoke in a suspicious growl.

  ‘I shall build my church on this hill,’ he said. ‘I make no secret of it.’

  ‘Build, and welcome!’ laughed the woman. ‘I told you - we fear nothing that you might bring here.’

  So we followed her, coming to a hall under a thatch roof. A fire was burning outside, and women were preparing food all around us. Some were already eating, all were talking and drinking. The walls were decorated with fetishes made from feathers and small stones, carved wood and bones. Torches flickered and I could see little through the smoke. Although we were given curious looks from many, there was no hostility towards us, and no abating of the general good cheer.

  ‘Fippa!’ called one man, with a generous black beard. ‘Bring your friends here.’ He waved at a space on the bench beside him, and grasped at a loaf close by. Proferring it, he enticed us to him. ‘And who might ye be?’ he asked us, in a shouting fashion.

  The woman answered for us. ‘The lad is here to build us a church, and he brings his mother with him. He believes, no doubt, that he can offer us salvation from our sins.’

  The man roared with laughter. ‘Another one, is it!’ he cried. ‘They come at us from all sides, Fippa. Are you not alarmed?’

  The woman shrugged and spread her horny hands wide. ‘What should I fear?’ she said. ‘I know what I know. ‘Twill take a better man than this to make me say white is black. Could be that he will soon join our ways, when he knows us better.’

  ‘Nay,’ I said, mumbling through the mouthful of bread. ‘Never think that. My son will not deviate from his faith.’

  ‘So be it, then,’ said Fippa. ‘And you, good dame? Where will you worship?’

  ‘We are from a Christian land,’ I said. ‘In the west, we have kept the faith alive since Roman times.’

  ‘Indeed?’ She turned away, snatching at a passing girl’s arm, to take a piece of steaming bacon from her. She seemed to forget us, as she took a hearty bite, the damaged teeth seemingly quite well able to serve their purpose yet.

  It astonished me that she seemed to have no sense of Cuthman’s power. Even the woodland witch who had taken my son for the Jack in the Green had foreknowledge of his arrival. Was this woman playing some deep game, pretending a casual lack of interest that was far from her real feelings? I believed she was. It was impossible, to my thinking, that she could fail to know what lay ahead. She was acting out a drama, where Cuthman was diminished and weakened by her refusal to see him as important.

  ‘What is the name of this place?’ Cuthman asked, then. ‘It is well to know, since I am to spend my life here.’

  ‘We are the Steyn ingas,’ said the man beside us. ‘We came from the Lance ingas who have settled a little south of here. There are many groups close by. But we have the great stone, the steyn which protects us and brings us such bounty from land and sea.’ He looked at us, with great earnestness. ‘Steyning, is this place’s name. We are the people of the Stone.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The events which befell me the following day set the pattern for the coming months and years, a
lthough I could not know it at the time. Steyning was so entirely different from the moors I had known all my life, that I felt I must be in faeryland. The sea, slapping endlessly against the wooden wharves and the reedy beds, was like a friendly creature in the summer sunshine. A row of dwellings housed the traders who sent goods on ships and kept control of the comings and goings. At that time, there was perhaps one ship each week, sailing from France or around the coast from London. In the month following our arrival, I watched bales of wool being loaded, in exchange for ironwork and pottery. The atmosphere was of a newly-founded settlement, learning new ways, finding new skills. The forest was teeming with swine and deer, which provided meat for the taking. Groups of men with spears hunted regularly and the people rejoiced at the life they had.

  That first day brought deeper joy than I could have imagined. As I woke I was struck by the comfort of the feather bed I had been given by the village people, and was in no hurry to rise. Stretching a little, sinking into the feathers, I waited for the pangs which always struck through my back and legs when I made my first movements of the day. Nothing happened. Cautiously, I twisted a little, rolling from back to side, pushing with one elbow. In normal times, that would have brought a scream of pain across one buttock and down to the knee. Again, I felt nothing. Only warm and dry and secure.

  I dug into the pit of my back with a fist. I curled myself into a ball, hugging my knees. Finally, I sat up on the bed and raised my arms above my head. Cuthman was asleep beside me, on a mattress of his own. Seabirds were calling outside, echoing cries like lost souls, bringing a strangeness to add to the miracle of my cure. The sun had risen, but I could hear no voices. The people here slept late, like those of Maiden Castle. It seemed that only Christian folk rose early and set to work with the dawn.