A once-bright hall with hearth aglow
Cast into shadow by the foe.
Voices of men made silent by sword;
Spear wives cry sorrows for their lords.
That passed away. This also may.
The exile on the whale road toils;
Back bending, cursing, dreaming of native soils,
Of home and kin, of mead cup and cheer.
O wretched fate that has brought him here.
That passed away. This also may.
Dark the night and cold the embers
In hardest winter that folk remember.
To hunger, sickness and frost no end;
They brought the death of many a good friend.
That passed away. This also may.
Eormenhild in years gone by
When ’twas foretold her man would die,
In vain entreated him to stay.
To fight he went—
‘That’s enough,’ Merewyn snaps in that sharp tone that Tova has heard many times. She raises her head and sits up abruptly. ‘I didn’t think it was possible to feel worse than I already did.’
Silence. Oslac’s fingers pause over the strings.
‘I didn’t know anyone was listening,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean to offend.’
‘Well, we were and you did.’
‘It’s meant to be a song of hope, not sadness. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Hope?’
‘Even the deepest grief, the worst hardships, they all pass in time. No matter how terrible things seem, things always heal. What matters is that we stay strong and don’t give in to despair.’
Beorn snorts. ‘And what would you know of such things, whelp? You look barely weaned from your mother’s teat. What hardships have you known?’
‘I’ve seen my share. You think that just because I’m young that means I haven’t known difficult times? I know what it means to lose loved ones. But I also know that there will come a time when all suffering will end, and we’ll be reunited with them. That’s right, isn’t it, Father?’
Guthred glances up abruptly from the stew pot. ‘What?’
Oslac points at the gold cross at the old man’s breast. ‘You’re a priest, aren’t you?’
‘This?’ Guthred asks and looks away as if embarrassed. ‘Yes, well, I used to be. Now, I don’t know what I am, to tell the truth. I lost my way. Now I suppose I’m trying to find it again, in the hope that I might return to God’s favour.’
‘Why?’ Tova asks. ‘What happened?’
‘Oh, it’s not important. You wouldn’t be interested, anyway.’
‘I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t.’
Merewyn says, ‘When we found you, you were praying. You were begging God’s forgiveness.’
‘I was,’ says Guthred, taking a deep breath. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. Trying to make up for lost time, I suppose. Before it’s too late, you understand. I turned my back on him; I only hope that after all this time he hasn’t turned his back on me and that he’ll still listen to my prayers.’
‘Why wouldn’t he?’ Tova asks. ‘And what do you mean, before it’s too late?’
‘Too late for salvation. Don’t you see, child? All this suffering is God’s way of punishing us for our wickedness.’
From the shadows of the barn, Beorn gives a curt laugh.
‘You don’t believe me?’ Guthred asks. ‘After everything you must have seen, you don’t think this is God’s vengeance upon our people?’
The warrior steps forward. ‘And why doesn’t he punish the Normans? Don’t tell me you think they’re the instruments of God’s will, come to cleanse this land of our sins.’
‘Why else would he allow these things to happen? We have sinned, every single one of us. We refused to heed the warnings—’
‘What warnings?’
‘You remember, don’t you, the hairy star that appeared in the night sky four years ago? That was a sign. A sign from God.’
Tova remembers. ‘That’s what Thorvald said,’ she says eagerly. ‘Our priest. He said it was a sign too. We didn’t listen, though. We didn’t believe it. No one did.’
Thorvald claimed to have seen the same star the last time it had appeared in the sky, some seventy years and more before, when he had been but a boy. Then, he said, it had portended the coming of the heathens from across the sea to wreak fire and slaughter and ruin upon England.
It had happened then and so, he said, it would happen again.
‘No one believed it,’ Guthred says. ‘To tell the truth, I didn’t believe it either. Like other folk, I thought at the time it was foolish superstition. It was only later, much later, that I saw it for what it was. It was God’s last warning that we should change our ways. We didn’t heed it. Now we pay the price.’
Beorn spits upon the ground. ‘I don’t have to listen to this. Signs from God? Don’t be foolish. Yes, we’ve all done bad things in our time, every one of us. Things we’re not proud of, that we’d undo if we could. Things we’d rather forget. But that has nothing to do with what’s happening here. This isn’t God’s judgement upon us. This is war, nothing more than that. You just don’t know it because you’ve never witnessed it before.’
‘I wish I could believe that were true,’ Guthred says sadly.
‘What are you doing here, then? What makes you so special, that your god should spare you when so many others have died?’
‘I don’t know,’ Guthred admits. ‘I don’t pretend to understand his plan. If I were to guess, though, I’d say that he’s offering me one last chance to atone. To make things right, as best as I can.’
‘Atone how, and for what?’ asks Merewyn impatiently.
‘It’s a long story. A long, long story.’
‘Well, we have time, don’t we? We’re not going to be travelling any further tonight.’
Beorn fixes Guthred with a hard look. ‘What did you do?’
The priest swallows. ‘May I show you something?’
Without waiting for an answer he stands, stiffly, and ventures inside the barn, where he fumbles amid his bundled blankets and returns moments later carrying what looks like a pilgrim’s scrip.
‘This is the reason I mentioned Lindisfarena,’ he says. ‘That’s where I’m trying to get to, if I can. Everything in here belongs rightfully to the Church. I can’t take it back to the place it came from because the Normans have overrun the land, so I thought to take it north instead, beyond their reach.’
He sits back down, cross-legged, by the fire. From the scrip he draws a cloth bag the size of Tova’s two fists placed together, which makes a clinking sound as he sets it down in front of him; there must be coins inside. Next comes a pair of silver candlesticks, followed by a jewelled cross, larger than the one he wears around his neck, which looks like it belongs on an altar; then an ivory æstel for pointing out passages when reading, like the one Thorvald uses on account of his failing eyesight, only much more elaborate. Its handle is gold, in the shape of a bird’s head, with tiny shining jewels for eyes.
‘Where did all this come from, exactly?’ Oslac asks.
‘From the minster at Rypum. Most of it, anyway. Look, there’s more.’
He draws out a bundle the length nearly of his forearm and as thick as his fist, wrapped in linen. Whatever it is, it’s heavy, for he cradles it in both hands, handling it with the same care he might give a small child. Slowly he unwinds the cloth, revealing glistening panels of sun-bright gold, in between which are set garnets and other precious stones, mounted on the front of a rectangular object.
A book.
Tova has seen books before, but never one like this. Thorvald had one – a psalter, he called it – which he kept in a locked box in his house. Skalpi used to own one too, until he sold it to pay for new helmets short
ly before he went to fight the Normans. He couldn’t read, as far as she knows, so how he came by it and why he kept it she isn’t sure. She only glimpsed it a few times, when he brought it out to show to his guests. She always thought it was a thing of beauty, small though it was. This, though, is something else.
She shrugs off her blankets and kneels down beside the priest, peering over his shoulder as with light fingers he opens the cover. A figure that she guesses must be Christ stares back at her from the page, enrobed in flowing garments with a halo of gold behind his head. And there are letters, row upon row of thick ink curls. She has no idea what they mean, but there are lots of them: little ones in long rows, and larger ones too, intertwined with vines and whorls and flowers in bright colours. Reds, like splashes of blood. Greens, as dark as the leaves of the yew outside the church at home. Blues, thick and murky, like the sky just before dawn.
‘What does it say?’ she asks.
‘Well, this part here is only the dedication and the preface. The rest of it, though, is Scripture: the first six books of the Holy Bible. They tell of the world’s beginning and the law that God laid down for his people, and of the journey to the Promised Land.’
He turns the leaves slowly, each one filled with writing, neatly laid out, with even spaces between each line, like the ridges and furrows in a field. She can’t imagine how long it must have taken for a scribe to copy out all those letters. There are pages and pages of them: a stack, thicker than her fist, of crinkled, yellowed vellum.
Merewyn asks, ‘How much is it worth?’
‘Oh, more than you could imagine.’
‘So,’ Beorn says, ‘you stole it and now you feel remorse. Is that it?’
‘Beorn!’ Merewyn scolds. ‘How can you accuse him of such a thing? He’s a man of God.’
‘What does that have to do with it?’
Guthred says, ‘How it came into my possession is a shameful tale.’
‘So you admit it. You’re a thief.’
‘No, I’m not. Well, I was, but all that’s behind me now. It’s complicated.’
‘Which is it? Yes or no?’
‘Look,’ the priest says angrily, almost in tears. ‘I saved it. I, Guthred. If it weren’t for me, this book and everything else would be in the hands of soulless fiends, enemies of God. I couldn’t let them have it, I couldn’t.’
Hurriedly he closes the covers and sets about wrapping the tome back inside the linen sheet.
‘It’s all right,’ says Merewyn, placing a hand upon his knee, trying to calm him.
Oslac scratches his forehead. ‘So you rescued these treasures from the Normans, is that what you’re saying?’
‘Not the Normans. Others.’
‘Who?’
‘Hateful people, whose hearts were hard and whose minds were filled with evil. Wretches for whom the sanctity of the Church meant nothing. Outlaws. Reavers.’
Beorn is watching him carefully. ‘You make it sound as if you knew them.’
Guthred doesn’t say anything for a long time. He raises a hand to his forehead, as if he has an ache there.
‘I did. Yes, I did. I knew them. I was one of them.’
Tova isn’t sure what she was expecting to hear, but it wasn’t that. ‘You, a reaver?’
‘For a while, yes, I was, although my sins go back further than that. I’m a bad person, you see. A bad, bad person. But it’s a long story, as I said. I wouldn’t want to burden you with my woes. The last thing you want to hear is my sorry tale.’
‘I’d rather listen to your tale than hear any more of his singing,’ Beorn says as he glares at Oslac, who glowers back at him. ‘It can’t be any more depressing than that.’
‘If he doesn’t want to speak, he shouldn’t have to,’ Merewyn says. ‘What gives us the right to pry? It’s not any of our business. Like you said, Beorn, we’ve all done bad things. We all have our secret shames – things we’re not proud of. Shouldn’t we be allowed to keep those things to ourselves if we want to?’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Oslac mutters. ‘My slate is clean.’
Tova glances anxiously at her lady. If any of the others only knew the truth about them, knew what they’re running from . . .
‘It’s all right,’ says Guthred. ‘If we’re going to be travelling together, you deserve to know the truth about me. It’s been far too long since I made confession. Maybe I’ll never get the chance to do so again. So this might as well be it. That is, if you’ll indulge a broken old fool.’
He glances around the fire. Oslac waits patiently for him to start. Of course, there’s probably nothing a storyteller like him relishes more than spending an evening exchanging tales. Whether they’re joyous or grim probably doesn’t even matter to him. Beorn shrugs, as if he couldn’t much care either way, but Tova can see from the frown on his face that he too is intrigued by this man. This was-but-is-no-longer-priest.
As is she.
‘We’re listening,’ Merewyn says.
He nods. ‘Very well.’
And he begins.
Guthred
As I said, it’s a long story, but I’ll try to make the telling of it as quick as I can. For my own sake, and for yours.
Like everyone else, you probably see this grey-haired figure, wrinkled and decaying in body, wearing this cross, and you say to yourselves, he must be a good man. Well, I’m not. I’m no more holy or worthy of respect than any of you. How many times have I done penance? How many times have I prostrated myself at my bishop’s feet, begging his forgiveness and vowing to do better in future?
Words. That’s all they were. All those promises, as empty as the sky. I can’t run from the truth any longer. After all that I’ve done, Hell is no more than I deserve.
For I’ve sinned. Sinned worse than you can imagine.
No, it’s true. I don’t say this because I want your pity. I say it because I don’t want you to think I’m something that I’m not. Lord knows how many people over the years have sought my guidance, have come to me for comfort and wisdom and hope. They looked to me as an example of how they should live and give praise to God. An example of goodness and honesty and virtue.
If they only knew how wrong they were.
I’m no priest, nor should I ever have been. I was never meant for the holy life, not really. The truth is I’d probably have died long ago in the village where I grew up, worn out through years of toil, had it not been for a lie.
That’s how it started, you see.
I was the youngest of six. Three brothers, two sisters. They were all much older than me and were forever tormenting me. Sometimes they let me join in their games, but more often I was the victim, the one who was always blamed for everything that went wrong. Every pot that was broken, everything that went missing: it was always my fault. I hated them. All of them. I hated my father too. This was so long ago now that I don’t remember much about him any more, except for his face, which was gaunt and sharp-featured. Sharp, like his tongue. Like his eyes too, which were ever alert and missed little.
He cared nothing for me. Indeed he resented me from the start. He never saw me as someone to nurture and teach the ways of the world. No, instead he regarded me with a sort of cold indifference, as if I were a stray dog my mother had brought in from the cold and to which she’d developed some inexplicable attachment. To him I was nothing more than another hungry mouth foisted upon him without his permission, who nonetheless had to be fed and clothed and sheltered and given space to sleep on his floor. That said, food was never something we found ourselves short of. Even during the worst winters or following a poor harvest, when others struggled to get by, there always seemed to be plenty on our table. Salted sea fish, spices from distant lands, ale of the finest quality and even, sometimes, mead. Meats of various kinds, even during Lent when it was forbidden, although at the time I was too young to know this or to a
ppreciate what luxuries these were.
I suppose I learned my ways from him. He was no one of any great account: the miller on a small estate owned by Bishop Leofgar of Licedfeld. Still, he did more than well enough for himself. It wasn’t until I was a little older that I understood how this was so, that I learned the first of the few lessons he ever did teach me.
There were two ways of living, I discovered. One was by honest labour, the way of all God-fearing men. The other was my father’s way.
He wasn’t a good man either. I sometimes wonder what he would make of me if he could see me now. If he could see what I’ve become.
For every sack of grain the village folk brought for him to grind, he was entitled to keep one sixteenth of the resulting flour, which he could then sell or use for himself. That was his privilege as the miller. Sometimes, though, he would measure out more than his due, mixing chalk dust or grit in with what he gave back so as to make up the weight. He didn’t do it often, lest anyone should guess what he was up to, and only took a little at a time. He claimed that was the mistake people often made and why they got caught in the end: because they were too greedy. Not that he told me any of this directly, you understand. He hardly spoke to me the whole time I lived under his roof. It was my mother who found out. Exactly how she did, I don’t know, but I overheard her confronting him one night when I was supposed to be asleep. He told her not to utter a word to anybody if she knew what was good for her, and maybe that was why he often beat her – to remind her of that warning.
From the very beginning, you see, I grew up surrounded by wickedness and deceit. I was born into it; it ran in my veins. Exactly when I began stealing, I don’t remember any more, but it couldn’t have been long after that. Deep down I knew it was wrong, of course, but the idea of it filled me with excitement, and I suppose I must have thought that if he could do it, then why shouldn’t I?
I began taking things, small things at first, when no one was looking. Pots of ointment from shelves, spoons and knives, a handful of nails from the forge, keys that happened to be left lying about – that sort of thing. I became adept at concealing objects in my palm or up my sleeve or in the folds of my tunic. No one showed me how; these were tricks I taught myself, with practice and some narrow escapes when I came within an eyeblink of being found out. I never dared to sell the things I took, and in any case I didn’t know who’d want them. What I’d do instead was either climb the great gnarled oak that stood by the edge of the meadow and cram my prizes into its crevices and hollows, or else bury them all together deep in the woods: dig a hole and cover them over with earth and bracken and hope that no one noticed. Sometimes, when my help wasn’t needed at home, I’d go and make sure that no one had disturbed my hoards. I’d sit on the ground with everything laid out in front of me and feel like a king counting out his gold. Of course I was always terrified someone would discover me, especially once I learned that the penalty for theft was flogging, but at the same time it gave me a thrill like nothing else, and I couldn’t stop myself.
The Harrowing Page 8
