by Rebecca Tope
As he spoke, I found myself at the same time proud and embarrassed. I shrank into the shadows, watching and listening.
‘We are all born in sin,’ Cuthman went on. ‘We live in darkness and ignorance, like animals, until we are awakened to God’s glorious love. God has proved this love to us by sending his only son to live with us, and to tell us the Truth of Heaven and Hell and the way our duty lies. He has told us what we must do, and told it very clear.’
He stopped and pointed a finger at individuals around the church. ‘You and you and you,’ he shouted. ‘You have heard the Word of God before, and have given it no heed. Now I am here to bring you a final chance to find redemption. You live in sin while you worship your stones and totems. The love of God is a wonderful thing. I bring you hope and joy and everlasting bliss. There is no reason for you to reject me and what I have for you. It would be madness to do so. I repeat, this is your final chance. If you turn away from the face of God now, you will be damned for all eternity. You will shiver in the lonely lost places of the damned. You will die and know nothing of the joys of heaven. Christ, who was born in the darkness of midwinter, brought a great light to the world. He brought life everlasting for all those who believe in Him.’
He paused and drew a deep breath. The flickering torches highlighted his face, in particular his long pale cheeks, which showed the bones and made his eyes glow dark and deep. He stood straight and tall, his hair long and fair. He made an attractive figure, and if he had only smiled into some of the listening faces, he might have swayed his congregation with the greatest of ease.
As it was, his serious manner, his loud hectoring, were at odds with his words. There was no visible sign of the bliss and joy that he spoke of. I let my thoughts drift, and could recall very few joyful moments in my life to that point. All that stood out in my mind was my time with Frith, when we were warm and excited, delighting in the discovery of each other. And there had been nothing Christian in our antics. I knew full well that any good Christian would have condemned our behaviour as sinful.
I thought of the settlement we had come into, with its lush green fields and rich forests. The sea brought food and beauty, and a sense of freedom. The Stone was a thing lovely in itself, and vibrant with power. There was peace and very little sickness amongst the people, who made music together, ate together, sharing the tasks. For the life of me, I would not have been able to convince them that the Christian doctrine had anything to contribute to the life they had.
But I knew, too, that Cuthman was convinced. He carried a lifelong certainty that his God was the only true Lord, and that in matters of the spirit he held all the power. I had seen his miracles, and would bear witness to his sincerity if asked to. And I had to accord him the respect and honour of giving my new child a Christian life.
The sermon ended with a flourish. ‘People! Friends! This church will be your salvation. When it is finished, there will be baptisms at the font that I shall provide. There will be marriages, and when any amongst you sickens and gives up the ghost, then I will bury that person in the holy ground on this hilltop. I will be here for you at every point in your lives, to guide and safeguard you. I will be your friend, your pastor, your spiritual guide.’
I glanced at Fippa. Her face was twisted with a strange mix of feelings. I could see that she was surprised at the force of Cuthman’s words. There was shock in her eyes and her head tipped back, as if a wind had blown full in her face. But she knew she must keep her balance, in what was evidently the opening skirmish of a looming battle. Her mouth was fixed in a scornful grin, a sneer lifting one corner. Her hands were open, flapping a little as if to wave away the nonsense she had heard. A few people were looking from her to Cuthman and back, as if weighing up the relative force of the two of them.
The cold was beginning to penetrate the unfinished building, and some children began to grizzle. Cuthman knew when to let them go, although it was far short of midnight, which I had expected to be a part of his ceremonies. ‘This is a time of love,’ he called. ‘This is the birth time of our Saviour. I wish you happiness and peace at this time. We have reached the moment of the Mass. But before we may celebrate and savour the blood and body of the Risen Christ, you must all be baptised. That is our next appointment, and tonight is not the time. For now go and give thought to all that I have told you.’
He left his platform, and strode through the crowd, patting shoulders and nodding at one or two individuals. He threw open the great door, and led the crowd out into the night. They moved slowly, muttering amongst themselves, and I followed them, hoping to escape my son’s notice.
‘Mother!’ he called after me. ‘We have business to arrange, have we not?’
I turned back, saying nothing. He went on. ‘Bring your espoused, who I note has not come to hear me on this holy night – ‘
‘He is unwell, with head pain,’ I interrupted eagerly. It was true that Frith had felt sick throughout the day, but I took it to be his gentle way of refusing to enter Cuthman’s church before the marriage.
‘No matter,’ Cuthman nodded. ‘If he be fit for it, bring him here the day after tomorrow, at mid-day and we will conduct the nuptials. Any that wish to witness the event may attend. I leave it to you to spread the word.’
I nodded, wishing I could find gratitude in my heart, or pleasure at the prospect. But I was cold and wary, bemused by the sermon he had just delivered. And I was unable to trust him to do as he promised. All I could do was turn to the church and say, ‘A fine thing you have made, my son. It makes me proud.’
He said nothing, but gave a cold smile. ‘It is what I was sent here to do,’ he murmured.
I trudged down the hill, my belly making it awkward to balance. In the past month, I had grown alarmingly, so that I needed to hold my clothes together for warmth. My legs became puffed out, and I could hold only small quantities of food before feeling sated. At night I was forced to lie on my side, which did not suit me. The hillside became steeper than ever before, and the sharp cold made the ground like stone, so that my feet were bruised on the hard sods of earth.
Next day was uneasy. It was a high Christian festival, which the people had almost unwittingly celebrated by attending my son’s sermon. They went about their daily tasks almost furtively, assisted in a way by the bitter east wind which cut through wrappings to bite at fingers and toes and bring tears to the eyes. Fires burned in every hut, from early in the day, and the people only came outside for more fuel, or to see to their beasts. There was a strange light that day, a white-grey which highlighted the stark bare branches of the trees, and was the very colour of frost and bitter cold.
I stayed with Frith in our small hut, moving as little as possible, and speaking seriously with him. He was quiet and melancholy and I was sorry for it. When the child inside me jumped, I took his hand and made him feel it for himself. He seemed old and weary, unsure of himself.
‘The marriage will make no difference,’ I sought to convince him. ‘It confers a blessing on the child we have made, and allows us to promise to remain together.’
He shook his head, the wiry hair showing white amongst the grey, like frosting. ‘I think not,’ he said, with a sigh. ‘I think we are the bone between two dogs, and can only suffer for it.’
‘How can that be? We will take the blessing, seal the union with a kiss, and return to how we are now.’
‘‘And your son? Will he not use us, then, as a lever to shift the people from the Stone? And will Fippa allow that? He moves too fast for her. She did not expect this.’
‘And yet she spoke of it to us at Lammas, four or five moons ago. And she allowed Garth and Welf to help my son. Without them, the church would be far from completion.’
‘And perhaps she regrets doing so.’
There was more of the sort, but I paid it less attention than at first. I dozed perhaps, or drifted into a waking dream about the child to come and how I had been granted a miracle of my own in this late blooming. Or perhaps there wa
s a tightening across my belly which took my mind away from religious struggles and made me wonder for a moment whether the child would come early and be far too small to survive.
We had our marriage. Cuthman was exultant as we climbed the hill, bringing a crowd of twenty or so behind us. And yet he fumbled his words and faltered from the outset. I did not understand for some time that he had never witnessed a marriage before, Christian or otherwise, and had only the most scanty idea from his talks in the Chidham monastery of what needed to be done.
Fippa did not attend, but her sons did. They stood beside Frith, and guffawed at him when he kissed me. Cuthman pronounced us a wedded couple in the eyes of God, with obvious relief, and then gave his second sermon as priest of the settlement. It was shorter but bolder than the first.
‘Friends, we see here a loving couple, united by the Lord God, so that their child might be a true Christian. By coming here in this way, they ask the Lord to recognise their union and to take care of their immortal souls in the dark days to come.’
I shivered a little at that. Did he refer merely to the winter season, or to the birth of the child, or something more?
‘It is as I said on Christ’s Mass Eve. I will be here to bless and sanctify all your great moments, as I have just done, and in so doing, I bring you to the Lord and all his great gifts.’
Then he looked directly at Frith, as if on a sudden afterthought. ‘Frith, my friend, you must be baptised. As there is not yet a font for the holy water, we must do as Christ Himself did, and take you to the river. Until that is done, my mother will be wedded to a heathen, and I cannot think that God would approve such a state of affairs.’
‘But – ‘ I protested. ‘The cold! The river is too cold.’
Frith nudged me a little and spoke up for himself. ‘It strikes me that such a solemn event needs preparation,’ he said in his quiet peaceable way. ‘If I am to swear faith in your God and to live by his commands, I should know more than I do. If not, then such a promise is empty. I would not know what I vowed myself to.’
Cuthman was impressed by this, and rubbed his chin whilst giving it some thought. I took Frith’s warm hand and held it tight. We were man and wife now, and I had a new place in the world accordingly. My belly roiled with the movement within, and I allowed myself to envisage the little family that I would soon create, an echo of the one I had known on the moors, but far, far better. I felt a pang at my betrayal of Edd and the strange outcast pair we had been, but shrugged it away. That had been half a lifetime ago and the world changed whether we wished it to or not.
‘Then we will wait a while,’ Cuthman decided. ‘And I will give instruction on the Word of the Lord, so that true baptisms might take place. Not just Frith, but all the people, should attend. It will be after the evening meal, each night in the Hall, beginning at the next full moon.’
This came as a relief. The moon was then in its first quarter, and until it was fully waxed, there was little prospect of the weather improving. Although the Hall was warm with its great fires, the habit had been to eat quickly and return to the smaller huts, huddling under the skins and packing hay around the walls to keep out the icy draughts. Like animals in such times, the great desire is to curl up and sleep the time away until the return of the sun. For me, and two or three of the other women, coming close to our birthing times, the desire to sleep grew more urgent as the days passed.
We clasped hands with Cuthman, first Frith, then me. For the time being, we each had what we wanted, and could part in good faith. What came next was opaque for us all, in the double-faced days that mark the winter solstice and the weeks following. A time to look back as well as forward, and to ponder on darkness and light, birth and death.
A fortnight passed, every day harder and colder than the one before. Snow fell on the days when the frost eased a little. The sea growled and thrashed, a deep grey colour, warning us all to keep away. Frith and I gathered fuel in the mornings, sharing our worries about how low it was getting, once or twice venturing to the forest edge for dead boughs, fallen from an elm or oak. The smell of smoke filled my nostrils, throughout the day. Although in the sharp frost, the fires burned well, eagerly consuming the fuel, the smoke rising straight, it got into our hair and clothes, and there was no escape from it.
The forest rang to the howls of wolves and screeching of birds. Wild pigs came out of the trees and nervously skittered around the edges of the settlement, seeking food scraps and perhaps warmth. Strange things happen in a severe cold spell. Otters showed themselves, as they dived into the sea for fish. Their rivers were frozen over, giving them no other choice. Great raptors dived into the shallows spearing fish.
The sheep and goats were brought into the pens at the edge of the village, safe from wolves and other predators. Feeding them was a constant chore, and the haystacks disappeared faster than anyone could have believed.
But we were dry, and happy together. I remembered the winter of a year before, starving in the hut, my back a constant agony, and gave thanks. My son had brought me to this place of peace and plenty, and I should show him my gratitude. I had been saved and given a new life. My back was restored, and I had nothing to fear.
Or so I said to Frith, cuddled against him in the dark. We talked much more than Edd and I had done. I recounted the story of my travels, the things I had seen, the ideas that had come to me. I told him of Wynn and Spenna and my childhood in the Christian village. I described how strange Cuthman had been, almost from the first – marked out, as I believed, for a special destiny.
My new man listened to me intently. He had favourite stories, like a child, and would say, ‘Tell me about the monastery again – the one where you first stopped.’ He took particular interest in monasteries, I discovered, and together we built up a picture of the life of the monks and nuns who lived in them. It was all Frith knew of Christianity, having heard many a time of other monasteries, and how they owned great areas of land, and took young boys to live with them.
‘They have forgotten us here,’ he said. ‘I have not seen a monk for many a year.’
‘Instead you got Cuthman, and his church,’ I laughed. ‘At least he will not steal young boys away.’
‘But he threatens in another way,’ Frith murmured thoughtfully. ‘He will challenge Fippa and fight to bring us all to his way of thinking.’
I said nothing, but I knew it was true. Cuthman saw himself as a missionary, and he had a duty to convert all the heathen. During his brief time at Chidham, he had been instructed in the best means to do this. And God was assisting him, whispering to him what to say. Cuthman could not read or write, he had no schooling, knew little of the world; but he had a sense of his own purpose. He had the power to perform miracles, and he saw angels. He had a strange light in his eye, which made people respect him. A strange peasant missionary perhaps, but I had no doubt that he would succeed. A vision of the Stone floated before me, lying broken and dirty in the long grass. Its time was done, and I shuddered a little at what might yet take place before the people admitted that it was so.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Events were hastened somewhat by the advent of the full moon, and the accompanying thaw. With it came a chill rain, beating into our faces as we went about our work. The river that ran down through the forest and into the sea spread beyond its banks, enticing waterbirds in their thousands, and threatening to encroach on the lower parts of the settlement. Everywhere was mud, as the top of the ground thawed, although below the surface it remained hard from the long freeze. We slipped and slithered about, and I became fearful of falling and damaging my child.
My belly by then was swollen beyond any imagining. ‘Surely I was never this huge with the other children,’ I said to the women who were to be with me for the birth. I compared myself to others who had conceived at much the same time as I did, and found myself to be bigger by far.
‘You are older,’ said one, quite kindly. ‘Perhaps that is the reason.’
‘Ask Fi
ppa,’ said the other. ‘Fippa knows everything about giving birth.’
Fippa had cold-shouldered me since my marriage, although I often caught her staring at me from a distance, with a strange grin on her face. I could not be sure that she would give me her true opinion if I consulted her. If I was carrying a very big child, how would I give birth to it? Would I die in the struggle? Worse than that, would my back be injured again? Death would be preferable to a further sentence of years of pain and disablement. What could I do to safeguard myself against it? As my time approached, I began to dream of blood and pain and a great monstrous infant which bit at me with long sharp teeth. But I did not go to Fippa, and she did not come to me with any predictions or suggestions. We both became distracted by a new turn of events.
Cuthman did not forget his promise of holding meetings in the Hall. On the night of the full moon, he stood up at the end of the meal and clapped his hands. ‘Friends,’ he called. ‘Friends! It is time for you to be taught the true Word of God. There will be baptism for you all when you feel you have learned enough to make your vows. We have endured a dark winter, and it is not yet finished. But the light is returning, and with it God’s good Grace falls upon you. You are a blessed people, as God showed when he directed me to come among you. Now I propose to instruct you, in small groups, where you may ask questions if there are things you do not understand. Frith, you will be my first pupil. And I will take four others – who are they to be?’