The Abbot's Tale

by Conn Iggulden

  I walked fast, considering what I might have to do to save Beatrice. Some women choose the life of prayer and solitude, just as my brothers did at the abbey. Those who fall into sin, who grow great with child, yet are unmarried – noble or not, rich or poor, they are shuttered away from the world. Those poor fallen creatures are our failures, made to spend their lives in prayer and hope of redemption. One thing was certain, if they had Beatrice locked away, I would not see her again.

  I burned as I walked. I felt hot and ill and my skin crawled. My anger was like iron: slow-heating, but all the more dangerous for that.

  I had to make my way past a queue of pilgrims as I drew close to the cathedral. The Benedictines there had a reliquary of St Swithun, very fine in gold and glass. They kept a record then of whether it rained on his feast day, when it was said to pour down for another forty if it did. They wrote too of the miracles that occurred there, in a book of wonders.

  It meant that those who came to that spot were often the most deformed to be found anywhere on these islands. Children had gathered to stare at the strangest of them and I confess, even in anger, my attention was snagged by some shambling boy with one eye much higher than the other. Whether he hoped to be healed or for death, I could only guess.

  A couple of them thought I was jumping to the head of the queue and hissed at me, so that I was stiff with indignation when I reached the great door, guarded by men in robes as black as mine own.

  One of them put up his hand to prevent me walking past him, but the other murmured something I could not catch and they both stood aside. They were strangers to me, but I was not to them, it seemed. My uncle had left orders for me to be admitted.

  The shrine to St Swithun was not a quiet place. Men and women wailed out their grief and their failures, pleading aloud for redemption. I made the sign of the cross as I passed them by, heading down the nave to one of four side chapels. I peered into two before I saw Uncle Athelm celebrating Mass, with a dozen men and women praying before him.

  My anger cooled as I waited. He had two stern-looking lads guarding the chapel against rough folk. The two fellows carried no visible swords in a house of God, but somehow I did not doubt they were well armed. My uncle was a man of power and great influence, after all. He would not walk the streets without guards to keep him safe.

  When the service ended, men and women in fine cloth came out, made solemn and at peace. I recognised a few of them from Æthelstan’s court and I bowed on instinct, rather than offend anyone else who had the king’s ear. It took but moments for them to file out, and then one of my uncle’s men bowed almost mockingly, gesturing for me to enter.

  Athelm was not a fool, in forcing me to meet him there. He had privacy, but also the timbered ceiling far above and sweet incense on the air to cool my wrath. I could not stamp and demand in such a place. I rather admired him for his choice, even as I fixed my gaze and tried to bend him to my will. I had given it some thought on my stalk through the streets.

  ‘Uncle, I wish to marry Beatrice. I will ask Lady Elflaed for her hand, as I understand she is her protector, her guardian. I am of age and I will make my life as a merchant and craftsman in this city, or perhaps in London. Beatrice is old enough to choose me and I would like to see her. No, I demand to see the lady who will be my wife, wherever you have put her.’

  I felt I was running away with my anger and clamped my jaw shut on more. Uncle Athelm raised his eyebrows at me.

  Are you finished, Dunstan? Now, you have spoken your foolishness . . .’

  ‘It is not foolishness, Uncle . . .’

  He went on over me, raising his hand once more as if about to give a bishop’s blessing. It was a strangely powerful gesture.

  ‘You have spoken, Dunstan. I believe it is my turn. You have come here for answers, have you not? Perhaps it might go better for you if you show patience and restraint instead of this, this . . . vulgar display.’

  I waited, though I could feel my heart thudding in my wrists and neck. I imagine I was as swollen as a bullfrog, watching him, convinced I was in the right. As if to torment me, my groin grew an itch I could hardly bear, so strong was it. I wanted to scratch more insistently than I could ever remember before. I rearranged the rope belt of my robe and used the motion to rub the area, but it was too brief and made it all the worse.

  ‘I promised your father once I would look after you, Dunstan, if he died. Did you know that? Heorstan was my older brother and I adored him. He was the cleverest of us and he made a fine life, with sons to make up for those I would not bring into the world. You don’t remember it, but I was there in your home many times in those first years. Before my work took me to Winchester and to London, I would visit you every summer and dandle you on my knee. I told Heorstan and Cyneryth then that I would see you and Wulfric safe, if the worst came.’

  He paused as I scratched myself, looking oddly at me before he went on. My itching grew worse, so I was almost trembling with it. I know now it was because I stood on holy ground. I had rotted my body with sin – and that sin was tormented in turn by the body and blood of Christ, by the centuries of prayers in the beams and stones around us.

  ‘I tried to warn you about Beatrice, did I not? I tried to tell you she was no virgin. Perhaps I should have spoken more bluntly. She had a child, Dunstan, born dead. She would not name the father to her aunt, saying she did not know it, that she had been taken by some fellow passing by on the road. I wonder now if she tempted him, as she tempted you.’

  ‘I will marry her,’ I stammered, though he had shocked me and made me wonder.

  ‘Oh, Dunstan! Did you think lust and sin are covered in flies? Did you think evil was unattractive? Would men be tempted by women if they were foul and not fragrant? No! Wide is the gate, Dunstan! Broad is the way that leads to destruction.’

  ‘I . . . love her, Uncle. I will make my way with trade and the skill of my hands.’

  ‘Skills that were given to you in the abbey and by the tutors Lady Elflaed paid to . . . What are you doing, Dunstan? Why do you keep twitching at yourself . . . Oh, son, is your flesh corrupt? Have you lain with her?’

  I could not tell an untruth, not in that place, with God and St Swithun and all the saints looking on. My eyes filled with tears and I nodded, expecting him to erupt. Instead, he came forward, putting an arm around my shoulder. I shrank back from him. Lepers are unclean and I felt the same way. He seemed to read my mind and his eyes were kind as he looked on me.

  ‘I fear it not, because I have not sinned. Come, be brave now. Let me take you to the king’s doctor. He is a fine man and he has seen, well, many things over the years.’

  ‘What about Beatrice, Uncle?’ I said.

  ‘The one who tempted you and made your skin foul? You are rotting, lad. Your sin is mortal and it will destroy you. Do you not understand? If you want to live and be clean again, come with me, deny her, denounce your sin and repent. If you do, Christ will raise you up. If you persist in your sin, in your unhealthy desires, you will know pain and anguish and death. I have seen it all before.’

  He took my hands and sniffed the air as if he could smell my powders.

  ‘Please, Dunstan. Choose to repent. I cannot force you in this. She has corrupted you, but you can still turn away.’

  ‘Will she be taken to a convent, Uncle?’ I asked. I had to know, though I could see my questions were eroding his patience with me.

  ‘Lady Elflaed said as much. Now, there is a woman of faith, Dunstan, a fine, strong branch without rot. Her sister was a pitiful creature and the daughter . . . well, you have seen. There is a bad apple, Dunstan. I only pray it has not turned you too far to corruption and foulness, so that you are beyond saving. Now, will you come with me? Will you repent and be free of them all?’

  I nodded, unable to see for the tears that blinded me. I did not ask about Beatrice again. I chose my way, my path, on that afternoon in the cathedral.

  That spring, Æthelstan joined his armies. He and his elite horsem
en had trained together in formations and patterns, charges and sudden wheels and strikes. I think it was some Roman tactic, rather than simply reaching the battlefield before those on foot. He had gathered eighteen thousand soldiers in his name and they rode out against three kings and all the traitors who stood with them.

  When the king’s men left Winchester, I went too, as my uncle’s eyes and ears. Under my cloak, I wore the black robe of the Benedictines, my brothers. I had given oath as a monk and I had taken holy orders as a priest. I rode into the north, lost and raw in my grief. I never saw Beatrice again. I cannot recall her face.

  15

  My first days on the road left me lonely and half-starving. My horse was a foolish, skittish creature who insisted I pay attention to him. I did not want to. I wanted to let him trudge along while I sat his saddle like a pile of wolf pelts, shifting and unaware. I had lost it all.

  The old Roman roads often vanished for great stretches, the stones stolen by enterprising builders. I might have grown to hate the bastards who had left us to plunge through mud and hack through briars, if I had found the energy. Instead, I felt pain as a distant annoyance, so that when I gashed my ankle on a stirrup, I let it bleed without my notice, though it seeped and dripped for a whole day. I’d known much worse.

  I walked my horse as a blot of misery amongst men who laughed and sang and called to one another. They were walking straight-backed and tall, or riding in the king’s own cavalry. They were warriors heading to war, and though you may hear tales of blood and terror, you must also remember that some men enjoy it enormously. It is, simply, the best and worst of us all, settled on a single day.

  We were a wonder to the villages and towns we passed, of course. They came to the roadside if one existed, or scrambled up local hills to watch us pass through the fields, staying there for all the hours of daylight in their innocent wonder.

  Not long after we left Winchester, a marching column disturbed our scouts, so that two thousand went to meet them, with King Æthelstan at the head. They were men of Malmesbury, a town I did not know well. They’d heard the king was riding out and sought to join him. The gesture pleased Æthelstan greatly. He brought them back to camp and paraded them around like heroes, saying it was men like these, and like us, who would destroy the enemies of England. I felt my heart beat faster as he spoke. Æthelstan had that touch, whatever it is, that made men put their heads down and quietly vow to show him what they could do.

  It was on the third or fourth day that I chanced to look behind me as I rode. My mood had been fine and light that morning as my horse had grown more amenable. Yet all that went in a moment and I swallowed bile at what I saw.

  How long did it take crows and wolves to learn to follow bands of men? A hundred years? A thousand? Perhaps a few loped or flew after the Brigantes and the Iceni. Perhaps they followed the legions of Rome into the north.

  They had learned well, those scavengers, those devourers of eyes and flesh. The sky was dark with crows and rooks. On the hills behind us, lupine shadows moved and snarled. They knew we walked with death and they crept up in our wake.

  It did not help that we were a Christian army, going to fight those who still made blood offerings. We scorned Viking gods, but then ravens and crows were Woden’s servants, so the old folk said. You have to remember the faith was still new in England then. The Roman Christians all withered on the vine when the legions left. It was another two centuries before St Augustine came to Kent – and in the three hundred years since, the faith has not reached every village and dark crossroads. There was always the chance that those birds knew something we did not. They called in the air to one another, and perhaps to us. I saw men who had laughed before hunch lower as they rode or walked, stealing glances behind whenever they dared.

  We passed within a dozen miles of London, but went no closer than Clewer, where the villagers lived in caves cut into a great cliff. They peered at us from their holes and hid from the sight of so many.

  By the end of the fifth day, we had barely covered eighty miles. Half the country travelled by river for a reason. We were mud-spattered and weary from wrestling carts out of great ruts and soft ground that sank them to the axles. Each one that came to a halt had to be unloaded, then lifted by four men on either side, while horses and oxen heaved at the front. I began to consider ways of using levers to make it easier on us. Archimedes said that if he were given a lever long enough, and a place to stand, he could move the world. The place to stand is the trick of it, when you are up to your knees in mud and sinking down every time you heave up.

  We had swung west to take advantage of a Roman road that was still mostly intact. The going would be better the next morning and even my dark mood lightened at the prospect of really stretching out. I no longer looked back at the crows and wolves slinking about in our wake, though I could still hear them. An army leaves a trail of dropped things and the creatures would snarl and screech over them, savage in a way that we were not.

  I had seen no sign of Æthelstan’s personal guard. He rode somewhere in the centre, perhaps a mile from me on that rough country. I guessed we would form a column on the stone road the next day, but until then I knew only those around me. I had a place with them and they had grown familiar. Each day, I would rise and stand in line with the same faces as the stew was brought. We were meant to bring our own plates but they had spares, watched as keenly as the chained spoons had been back in Winchester. Every day I thought of her.

  I was waiting there as the sun rose, my stomach making odd sounds of hunger as I stared at nothing. I was in such a daze I did not hear my name called, though I knew it had been when my arm was touched and I looked up with a start.

  ‘It is you,’ Edmund said. ‘I thought it was. Who else would wear black amongst these men, eh?’

  He wore perhaps the finest cloak I had ever seen, a thing of royal blue that looked as if it might be proof against a winter blast, never mind the gentle nights we knew. Under that sweep of cloth, Edmund’s mail was oiled and shining, not the great sheet of rust some poor men owned. I saw too that he had buckled on a sword and belt, with a fine scabbard.

  There was no actual rule that prevented Benedictines from carrying weapons in a battle. I had my knife and my tools in bags of leather, on straps I’d hung over my horse’s back. Yet I envied Edmund, even so. He was the king in waiting and it showed in his bearing. He clapped me on the shoulder and embraced me, so that my tin plate clanked against his belt buckle. My mood turned grey once again.

  ‘I know that look, Dunstan,’ he said. ‘I have seen it many times. Poor men we are, who can shrug off a lost bet, or the death of a favourite hound, but grow sombre as a funeral just because of love. Now, is it because she would not, or because she would?’

  I blinked at him, seeing how open and honest he appeared.

  ‘I’ve made my choices,’ I said. I patted myself over the heart to show him my black robe. ‘And my oaths. I’ll live with the consequences now.’

  ‘I’m glad your hands are mended, though I think you were in better spirits when they were in splints. Cheer up, Dunstan. You are young and in good health. A few of the lads and I have a keg of some foul draught they bought in Aldermaston. You’re not forbidden strong drink, are you?’

  I was not, though in the Benedictines drunkenness was certainly a matter for discipline. Yet I was not in an abbey and neither was I attached to a particular bishop. I shook my head and walked with him, leaving my horse in the care of an ostler boy.

  The drink they had purchased had been brewed from lichen, so they said. I suppose anything alive can be made to ferment, with enough care. I have not tasted anything quite as foul again.

  Edmund too had been born in the dark months, as so many are whose parents love in spring. He’d turned seventeen just after Christmas and seemed to have grown taller. Around him were the sons of noblemen and kings, a dozen perhaps in all, who had come to that march not for Æthelstan, but for the one who would be king after him. I sa
w it when they were telling tall stories and boasting about their valour. These were the young men who would make their own royal court in years to come. I realised I could be part of it.

  I matched them drink for drink and I told them wild stories of King Arthur I had heard at the abbey, new to them all. Most of them cheered my tales, though there was one great brute who seemed to resent my sudden rise and the favour Edmund showed me.

  Some men are petty in drink. Leofa of Kent was one of them. In truth, the same could perhaps be said of me. At one point, I do recall weeping, as the drink had a sad effect. I believe I told them of my Beatrice and how she had been taken from me. I said too much, I am sure – and I recall Leofa trying to mock my grief, until he was brought up sharply by Edmund. The Kentishman did not take well to that! I grinned at him and added him to my list of enemies, writing in the air with a finger. It was a compliment, in a sense. I have never chosen the weak to pit themselves against me. I pity those and let them go their way. No, my list was reserved for strong fools and spiteful old women.

  Edmund was nursing a headache as he brought me safe back through the camp to collapse into my blankets. Now, that was the mark of him! Another would have left me to freeze where I fell, not gathered me up and brought me home. That night, I had become one of his men.

  I saw it in the way the soldiers looked at me the following morning, as I groaned and rested my forehead on the cool leather saddle in the dawn light. I could not eat. I could hardly keep my own acids inside me. Yet I smiled as I groaned, recalling the laughter and the wildness. Had we run through the camp? We had, racing each other in the dark, so that I had memories of wind rushing past and my robe flapping wet against my knees.

  My grey mood had burned off at some point in the night, like morning mists vanishing in sun. I spent every day from then on in the company of Edmund’s band, close enough to Æthelstan and his own bearded earls to be able to watch the king and those who looked to him. Æthelstan carried himself well, I saw. In a sense, he carried us all.