by Rebecca Tope
Over the next days, he brought us five fat pigeons, a young wild pig - which terrified me by its squeals. Dense though the forest was, and seemingly deserted, there were sheriffs’ patrols watching over the forest hogs, and to steal one meant severe punishment. Although all the omens were good, and Cuthman was blessed enough for all of us to feel safe, it was with rising gorge that I gulped down the pork meat and buried the bones deep under the leaf mould. Hal also found us some dried-up sweet apples, which were carefully wrapped in straw and tucked beneath a stack of logs. Someone would be coming back for them, I believed, but Hal said it was too late in the year and the owner must have died or moved away.
By the week’s end I felt I knew Hal’s shining man, heart and soul. I asked the boy to tell me more, and slowly he added detail to the picture. The man appeared without warning, and had long hair the colour of the woodland primroses which were just coming into flower. He told Hal he was fortunate to be with some very important people, beloved of God, and it was his task to save them from starvation. It was a moment before I understood that he meant Cuthman and me.
Cuthman remained ill for six days, but never frightened me as he had on the first day. Now we had food, I was convinced that all would be well, and that he would recover. I had no understanding of what had made him sick so suddenly, but was glad not to be riding in the jolting cart, and found small pleasures in fashioning a little home in the space between a spreading beech tree and a screen of mixed hazel and holly. The weather grew warm, and the full moon shone down on us at night. I knew, dimly, that it was Eastertide, but the days all ran together, and I could not say precisely when the Day of the Risen Christ arrived. I did not speak of Him, although I nursed the suspicion that Hal’s shining man was the Christ Himself, come at this holy time to preserve the life of his chosen Cuthman, destined for greatness.
I shook and brushed our clothes and rags, laying them out in the sun to be freshened. One person passed along the path, but we were concealed by the bramble thicket and went unobserved. Cuthman did not smell pleasant, and Hal and I slowly shifted our sleeping hollow further from him, night by night. I delighted in the little body close against me every night, sleeping soundly with a full stomach and obvious pleasure at being with me. I groomed his hair, and gave him a mother’s attentions. With every passing day, my spirits rose. The hope and good cheer in the birdsong, which rang out from sunrise to noon and then again in the late of the day, brought answering music from me, and I hummed as I had not done for a long time.
At the end of the week, Cuthman sat up and announced that he was better. He had scarcely spoken to Hal or me during his sickness, so the child and I had fallen onto each other’s company, telling stories, singing softly and playing childish games. I cut and peeled a number of elder wands, and wove them together in a kind of mat, which I folded in two, to make a carrying bag for his daily food collection. The slippery white flesh beneath the bark was like the slimy skin of the fish, but it had its own powerful scent. Elder is a woman’s plant, powerful in a pliant subtle fashion. As a child I was drawn to it, as to no other plant. The new young stems gave off a scent I found heady and attractive. Using them again in the forest, as a grown woman, I was transported to my earlier years by the associations of olfactory memory. The carrier I made did not work well. The weaving undid itself, until there were holes and loose strands. As it dried, the wood became brittle, and snapped.
‘You owe your life to Hal,’ I told Cuthman, when he was himself again. ‘He found food for you. Without him, we would both have starved.’
Hal flinched at the scrutiny Cuthman gave him, and shook his head. ‘Not me,’ he denied. ‘The man.’
‘I heard some talk of a shining man,’ Cuthman said slowly. ‘What was that?’ Hal and I looked briefly at each other, unsure of how to reply. The angel had informed Hal that Cuthman was his precious charge - it seemed strange that Cuthman himself did not know the truth of this. We were each of us shy of explaining to him how the food had been provided.
‘We think an angel has been watching over us,’ I said, as if it were a mere trifle. ‘I did not see him myself, but he has showed Hal how to find food for us.’
‘I dreamed it,’ said Cuthman, a complacent smile on his lips. ‘I dreamed the Christ Himself was with me. He told me our journey is half done, and we need make no haste for three more moons. There is work to do, holy men to meet. And - ‘ his face became serious, even worried, ‘ - and the evil woman will trouble us again.’
I would have liked to pretend I did not know what he meant, but the face of the woman in the hermit’s pool came back to me, as vivid as ever, and I knew exactly what Cuthman had seen. But instead of feeling apprehension at this threat, I was stirred by a strange excitement. I was impatient to meet this creature who could send images of herself to strangers, and enter our dreams again and again. If she was a witch in the service of Satan, I trusted that my son had power enough to conquer her. But I took little satisfaction from that thought. It seemed to me that this person had things to teach me, matters that I needed instruction on, and I was impatient for her to come into our lives in all her abundant flesh.
But I said none of this to my companions. With Cuthman well again, we recommenced our journeying, though more slowly, and with little sense of direction. Day by day the spring opened up around us. Great masses of white flowers blazed out from the blackthorn and the bullaces, like snowdrifts, new and surprising every day as the sun rose and lit their white fire. Blue skies greeted every wakening, with the fluffy white clouds of April, and the sudden impatient little bursts of rain, gone as soon as they’d wept their small storms over us. Our own journeying seemed to be overtaken by the great torrent of nature’s dash from winter into summer. We found new drifts of blue, white, yellow flowers every day, many of them attracting clouds of bright butterflies adding more colours, until the world seemed to be a great festival to greet the returning sun.
I recall a day when we walked beside a river, edged with fine beech trees and willows, with dark clusters of yew set deeper into the forest. All at once we turned a bend, to see before us a great mass of glossy yellow flowers, which I did not think I had ever known before. My blurry vision could not make out the individuals - but as we had to walk directly through them, my cart crushing a few, so dense were they, I peered closer and saw that they closely resembled the small celandines we had seen already. Some larger form of the same flower, I assumed, and begged Hal to gather me a bunch of them, to ride with me in the cart, like a May Queen.
We moved steadily eastwards, spending our days talking and instructing Hal in the Word of the Lord and the Life of our Saviour. Although the shining man never returned, Cuthman and Hal together kept us supplied with plentiful amounts of food. They made sharp spears and killed a variety of creatures with them. It was not long before I found myself craving for bread and something green, after so much meat, smoky from our outdoor fires, and raw in parts. I gathered young nettles and boiled them, consuming them with relish. With every passing day there was new growth, at this season. At an earlier hour each day, the mornings were deafening with birdsong, the music pulling at my soul and bringing me a joyous mood before I was properly awake. We forgot that Cuthman had fallen ill so mysteriously, and only I remembered how unfriendly he had been towards Hal at first. They were like brothers now, laughing and playing together.
Everything became fat and full, with the new year’s promise. Cuthman was restless, but seemed to have lost sight of his forward drive in search of his uncertain destiny, and was content to use his new energy on Hal. The little boy gained flesh and wisdom together, and his tinkling laugh rang out in competition with the gladsome birds.
We took my cart with us as we drifted slowly on, but now I walked more than I rode, and we used it for our accumulation of things. The spears, skins, bones and spare food was piled in, and the three of us rambled along the forest paths with a continuing sense of delight at all around us. The first time we heard the cuckoo was a
great day. It flew directly over our heads, although we couldn’t see it for the trees, and the cry seemed strangely breathy and hollow so close by. Hal seemed never to have heard it before, and gazed all round in wonderment.
‘What is it?’ he gasped.
‘Naught but a bird,’ I laughed at him. ‘A wicked bird, for all it brings the spring and summer and happiness.’
‘Why wicked then?’ He frowned up at me, and I remembered when he had scowled from apprehension and hunger instead of an anxiety to learn and understand.
‘She lays her eggs in the nests of poor little birds. And when the chick hatches, he’s a great greedy beast, who kills the little bird’s own fledglings and takes all the food. She works and works to feed it, till it grows ten times her size, and flies away.’ As clear as can be, came back the memory of my own mother telling me this story, and my mixed-up feelings about it. The cuckoo had always seemed to me admirably artful in her deception, and the labouring little mother bird a fool for nurturing the wrong baby. But perhaps any mother would do the same. Whatever the rights of it, the cuckoo thrives, by God’s grace I suppose, and has a place in the scheme of things.
Hal thought it over, as I had done. ‘Nature is wonderful,’ he pronounced, finally, so solemn and decided that I pulled him to me for a hug and a squeeze. Then I ruffled his hair and let him go, laughing in my gladness at having him with us.
Later in the day we heard the bird again, further off. ‘It cries Cuthman, Cuthman,’ said Hal, as if this was only to be expected. My son looked up from the stick he was whittling and stared at Hal, a smile, first of simple amusement and then, as the cuckoo called again, of a complacency which I found annoying.
‘It might just as easily be saying any other name with two parts,’ I said, wishing I could think of one. The echoing song did in reality sound like my son’s name, though no-one had ever remarked on it before, when cuckoos flew across the moors and meant no more than the coming of summer.
At the month’s end, we emerged from the forest to be greeted by a great expanse of water. To the north it seemed to taper, but southwards it widened into a veritable ocean. On the opposite bank we could see land less forested than that which lay behind us. With a sense of having arrived somewhere, we turned sharply north and followed the coastal path for two days until we came to the great river which opened into the sea. At the same time, we found a settlement, with the smell of baking bread strong on the breeze, along with fish, onions and ale.
Without a word, we began to hurry, like moths to a flame, or sheep to their winter fodder. After a few minutes, I began to flag, and fall behind. ‘I must ride,’ I panted. ‘Wait.’
Cuthman handed me into the cart, and I tried to settle into my old comfortable posture. But it was impossible - nothing fitted any more. My thighs felt stretched, my arms ached after a few minutes of holding tight to the sides, and my back was sore in no time from leaning against the wooden edge. Worse than that, I felt exceedingly foolish. And our pace was slowed by Cuthman’s limbs being just as unaccustomed as mine were. He puffed and heaved, and I finally realised that I must have become heavier from the month of good eating and idleness.
‘I should walk,’ I insisted.
But my son was adamant, and gradually we found our old rhythm returning. Cuthman himself had gained strength and stature from the weeks of rest in the forest.
The settlement proved to be a town of some substance, spread along the seashore, where ships were tied up. Cuthman and I had never seen such things before, and stared like fools at the floating wooden beasts. They bobbed lightly on the dark dirty water and we watched men running along boards which joined them unsteadily to the land, carrying great bales of stuff. Our curiosity drew us ever closer, until we stood together on the very brink of the water’s edge, marvelling at how cleverly it was constructed.
Hal was more experienced, and had an idea of where the ships had come from. He mentioned an uncle who worked on a ship and came home bronzed and weathered like a man carved from yew.
There were people of all kinds around us. Rough-voiced women, waiting for the ships to be unloaded, their children scampering about, so close to the brink of the dock that I felt sure at least one would go over and drown. Men dressed in fine cloth, with stout leather boots and authority in their eyes stood with folded arms observing the wares and ordering their placement on the quay. And young lads, eagerly observing the magical floating homes, dreaming of faraway places across the sea. One ship was painted with strange designs in blue and gold and the men aboard it had dark faces and full mouths with the whitest of teeth. Their long black hair was tied behind in red cloths, and they had gold rings in their ears.
But there was nothing for us, and we turned away, bumping my cart across rough rutted streets and seeking to get back into the empty areas of field and forest where we felt we belonged. I had abandoned my intention to walk, the pace too quick and the habit of riding too well-formed to break easily.
A hissing behind us as we proceeded became louder and more threatening. It seemed that a group of women was following us, whispering fiercely between themselves. I could not turn to look at them, and I did not think Cuthman had done so, either. But Hal, free to turn and run and skip as much as he wished, looked back, and then found the sight so fascinating that he continued to walk alongside the cart backwards, his small face fixed in a wondering gaze.
‘What is it?’ I asked him. ‘Who are they?’
He shrugged. ‘They find us of much interest,’ he replied.
‘And you they,’ I said. ‘Turn round, boy, before you trip.’
He ignored me, and carried on as before, lightly trotting backwards across the ruts, one hand resting on my cart for balance. Now and then he glanced up at Cuthman’s face, but said nothing.
We passed small rough dwellings, the fine day bringing the occupants out to sit beside their doors. Many had brought their bedboards into the open air, and were sitting on them, working on baskets or stitching. They all stared at us as we came into sight, and muttered about us to each other. Every step had become an ordeal of self-consciousness by this time. I wanted to get out of the cart and show these people that I was the same as they were. Many craned their necks to look at my legs, perhaps wondering whether I had any. I would have kicked them up if they had not been so firmly folded into place that it was impossible.
At last I could abide it no more. ‘Well?’ I screamed at a pair of women who came creeping towards us to stare. ‘What do you find so extraordinary? Can humble travellers not pass through this heathen place without arousing such looks?’ The women, both young and pleasant-faced, giggled and backed away from us.
‘Hush, Mam,’ came Cuthman’s voice at my shoulder. ‘Be easy. The town wall is just there, see.’
I looked ahead and saw that he was right. The town had been walled in on the land side, and we were approaching a great gate, standing open. The wall had not been kept in good repair in recent times, but showed few signs of having been the site of any serious fighting.
‘It is the prophecy!’ came a sudden loud cry. A woman’s voice, calling across the streets, as if voicing the thoughts of all the people who had stared at us. ‘The boy and the cart! As the witch foretold.’
An answering cry went up from a hundred throats who had merely been waiting for the spoken words. ‘Yes!’ they called. ‘The boy and the cart.’ But to us it simply sounded like the crashing of a great storm or the falling of a towering tree in a gale.
Then we were surrounded. The leather strap was taken from Cuthman’s neck, and other hands seized the handles. Hal was grasped tightest, as the one they saw as most likely to wriggle free. ‘To the cave!’ they crowed. ‘Let the witch see them.’ And we were rushed through the great gate, over fields, through woods, as if by a great god’s hand, my head spinning, glimpsing Cuthman now and then, as the women propelled him on, more anxious for him and Hal than for myself, remembering vividly the women from the Maiden Castle and thinking the same was occur
ring again.
Chapter Eighteen
A few men had seen our capture, but made no move either to help or to hinder. I saw one grey-beard lean his head to another and say, ‘I told you they’d come. The boy saint and his aged parent,’ his eyes fixed on my face bright and excited.
The speed of events kept me from feeling fear. Rather I was curious about the creature we were being taken to. I had clearly caught the word ‘witch’, alarming certainly, but I could imagine no reason why we might be cursed or enchanted by the woman, and if we were indeed the manifestation of a prophecy, it seemed more probable that we would be elevated and celebrated in some way.
We were expected. Between two twisted ancient oaks, tucked beneath a jutting ledge of stone, decorated with skins and skulls, herbs and charms, was the cave. Standing tall, wearing a bright purple gown, her hair long and snowy white, despite a face that struck me as young and unlined, was the witch. I realised then that I had expected to meet at last the woman whose face I had seen in the hermit’s pool. Confusion and disappointment washed over me as I stared at this stranger, my eyes screwed up to see her better.
‘Bring the holy one here,’ she invited. ‘There is much to be done.’ She inspected Cuthman sharply, waving at the women to release him and let him stand clear for her to see. ‘You have travelled far and long,’ she remarked, with something close to admiration in her tone. ‘Some of us had begun to despair.’ I was assisted from the cart, relieved to be treated with no obvious disrespect.
‘What do you want with us?’ I asked, trying to stand straight beside my son. Hal held onto my hand, his eyes wide, hopping a little in his agitation. I tugged at him in a signal to keep still, but he paid me no heed.
The witch woman smiled at me unpleasantly. ‘Nothing of you, hag,’ she said, and brushed her hand across her mouth as if I disgusted her. My short-lived optimism shrivelled under her gaze. ‘It is your lad we looked for,’ she went on. ‘Strange that you have two of them. Only one was prophesied.’ The contrast between her attitude and that of the crowd worried me. I shrank away from her and made no attempt to explain about Hal. If Cuthman were to be taken from me once again, I would perhaps be glad of the younger boy as a replacement. He would not be able to push my barrow, but he would at least be company. He snuggled against me when the woman spoke, and I wrapped an arm around him, pleased to be his protector.
