Book 3

The venerable Cuthwin tells the beginning of his innovative vocation in Hereford and how his wanderings began. Also, he speaks of dastardly events experienced by him and his worthy wife, Cwenburh. His account continues, by the Grace of God, including his encounters with strange and gifted souls. Lastly, he describes those of the Devil’s craft, and how their ways create misery and evil for Godly men and women.

 

The City of Hereford in those Saxon days was much simpler than that of today. Now there is a Cathedral and Priory—plus castle and stout fortifications built by the wealthy Normans who take no chances with Welshmen, preferring to keeping them suppressed. Before them the Saxons’ imperfect guard caused them losing Hereford to the ruthless Welshman, and many were killed, with property and persons ending up burned or as spoils.

But when Sidroc-the-Old’s party and train arrived, it was Lammastide to the day, and there was great relief when we crossed the Wye Bridge and passed over the row ditch²⁴ and through the gated walls.

While passing the ditch and wall, we encountered busy Lammastide markets and fairs both in and out. I had never seen so many people in one place, even at Peterborough. Cwenburh’s mouth gaped open at the sight of this wonder, for she and I were now allowed to walk together.

With our arrival, a great send-up and sport resulted from the clear evidence and outcome of Alfred-of-Aylesbury’s train. Children followed, marveling at the massive wheeled carts—and adults hooted and made catcalls after us. They shouted curses at Alfred’s dead soul, for news of his end preceded us—and his wife Gertyn stood inside the leading cart. (Women and children chose to ride the last mile into Hereford.) Gertyn heaped severe curses back, and she was joined in like spirit and behavior by the other women of our train.

It was a most formidable arrival.

These abominations exchanged left no doubt that residents of Hereford, low or high born, did not pity Alfred or his kindred. Sidroc-the-Old was joined by Sidroc-the-Younger riding in front, noses held up—whereas Lenoc made great sport of it all, a natural showman before a crowd.

Lenoc, on his fine horse, cavorted north and south along the train. He enjoyed causing laughter, and for every coarse word and expression given, he made return threefold—his better and wittier than theirs. He picked up children, and tossed them on the back of his mount to their vast joy, until the poor horse crawled with them.

Then, well inside the gates, standing on an elevated platform, I recognized the Reeve whom I had encountered before and appeared as a vast man of imposing girth and height. He was dressed entirely in rich, black cloth, with a cross and chain coiled round his neck. On his head he wore a cleric’s hat. He was unsmiling and greeted Sidroc-the-Old with a sober nod.

I guessed it was His Eminence, but my inexperience in city matters and great men could be forgiven at that point in life, for of course it was His Eminence’s Chief Secretary. It was a three-sided courtyard where he and his Reeve stood, and we all rode in. The noise and outburst of arrival now gone, the crowds absented themselves, understandably reticent from appearing before this powerful officer.

This was a somber setting, and the grim nature of the Secretary sustained that ambience and nature of things.

“Sidroc-the-Old, may God bless you. We prayed for you, hearing of the desperate situation.”

“Any word of His Grace, the Holy Bishop of Ludlow? Have the Welshmen skinned him alive, perhaps?”

That set the Secretary into a great frown. Sidroc-the-Younger made no gesture or sign, but glanced curtly at his sibling Lenoc who was about to laugh, instead forcing himself to render a somber face, though he did so poorly.

The Secretary allowed himself a long pause, perhaps thinking the comment’s sarcastic aim might diffuse into air.

“We pray for His Eminence’s beloved brother, and safe ransom.”

Sidroc and his sons dismounted and followed the Reeve and Secretary into the massive stone-structured Bishop’s House—actually, more a castle in today’s sense, including iron gates, a rare and expensive attachment during these early times.

The train was left in the square, and the sergeants ordered us to stay around the carts, and to avoid any nonsense. They then showed the women where to get the necessities of water and such.

The carpenter, myself, and his sons, however, were escorted—under guard—to taking the oxen and tackle to His Eminence’s livery. The rich and powerful man had an extensive stable and several workmen to attend, all overseen by a gnarled old Saxon liveryman. His apprentices greedily took in hand the fine oxen, though harshly criticized the tackle and diverse riggings: “Looks like ignorant cotsets did this work!”

The carpenter bristled, but we were pushed about by guards to be returned to the now-chocked carts. Several of the livery apprentices called out to our backs: “It’s His Eminence’s auction block for you dogs!”

Added to this were hooting and mean-spirited laughter.

Upon return we sat upon the stone and dirt in dismal mood, for it appeared promises made under duress on way to Hereford were forgotten. Alfred-of-Ayelesbury’s train were all as one—grist for negotiation.

Families came together in knots, the remorse of their anticipated bondage causing sadness—even weeping. Cwenburh was becoming pale, and I wondered if her time was getting close. She leaned against me, and I held her up.

“God help us, Cuthwin. I am closer than I thought. The women were right. I couldn’t escape now.”

And indeed, Cwenburh was massive and walked with difficulty. It was even hotter inside this stone court—away from even a vagrant breeze. The stench of the city was overpowering—even to those used to the smells of croft and village. Flies gathered everywhere, for with Lammastide, chores of His Eminence’s people went begging.

Though allowed to haul wellwater, when the children begged for food and the parents naturally asked the guards for it, we discovered a change at once: Guards were no longer squires, or those under employ of housecarls—these had gone. These guards were dark, knobby sorts equipped with a stout club or staff—not any accoutrement of metal—a poor man wields nothing requiring mail or breastplate.

So these beasts struck or hit those begging for food, causing blood wounds and even bones breaking. Immediately, requests for anything ceased.

Now atop the heat, stench, and all else, we were subject to immediate physical harm if complaint were made. It was difficult to keep the children silent—and these guards would strike a child—and did.

Finally, an apparent sergeant-guard yelled at his underlings in midstroke: “Be easy, you turd! Make blood and splinters of them, and you’ll have His Eminence’s Secretary up our arses.”

Then he shouted to us all that we’d be fed soon enough, and to keep still or it would go even worse for us. “You’re just a miserable lot of harlots and criminals who are not deserving of honest food and shelter.”

Despite this awfulness and cruelty, life did not pause. Cwenburh became increasingly distressed. Several women, plus even the dour Gertyn, made something of a decent bed platform under one of the wagons.

In fact, it was Gertyn who shoved me away.

“Cuthwin, do not attend anymore. Let my daughters. Time is close for her. Thank God the sun is going and this heat will lift.”

Through the night I prayed fervently to our Savior for Cwenburh’s safe delivery and the well-being of the child we had waited so long for—whose coming would be changing our lives so drastically.

I was of croft and paddock and knew well birth and birthing. I was familiar how a ewe can be made to miscarry by even a minor mishap of treatment. And for the past ten days, poor Cwenburh experienced great violations of proper treatment, she no more than a girl—less in weight to a stout ewe.

My expectations were dismal—for I knew if I lost her I would come adrift in this world. Alone I would no longer want to occupy ground or purpose. I hope God has forgiven me for those selfish thoughts. Because it was those prayers I believe that brought punishment down.

Close to Prime of the second day of our coming to Hereford, the carpenter’s wife solemnly took me aside and told me our child had never breathed, and that Cwenburh remained in trouble; but with prayer and the help of our Savior, “She could survive. So pray, Cuthwin.”

I remained in prayer that day, and one of Alfred’s daughters, Matilda, would bring me news how Cwenburh progressed and, though no better, was not worse: “If only a healing woman might be paid, or fresh medicines be bought—but they took all our money and whatever potions and herbs we kept with us. The poor thing is left with prayers, though always a good thing.”

For with Lammastide being celebrated just a few furlongs distant, there would be herbalists and healing women of all skills plying their crafts and wares in their niches and pavilions. Wondrous elixirs, potions, and salves were had by the dozens; and of course hands-on services. All these medicines and applications took much knowledge and came dear. Celebrations during fairs and markets to mark holy and saint’s days increased chances of great healings, of course, through God’s grace.

But these miracles began with the paying of King’s silver.

Not only were we without money but branded by Alfred’s previous sinful acts. At that time, I did not know that scorn resulting from sin indicated possible advantage for business people. I was to soon learn this was the way of Saxons and, certainly of Normans, God help us.

Even at my prayers, my day became more wrought with despair: A hand on my shoulder, harsh and firm, called me to an interview with Sidroc-the-Younger. Its owner did not care I was at prayer or the purpose of it.

“Up you! Sidroc wants to see you. Now.”

I was shoved ahead of a guard—kept moving fast. We went into His Eminence’s residence—a warren of passages and courts, past them into St. Guthlac’s Church, composed of just a simple transept and apse.

At the end of St. Guthlac’s sat Sidroc-the-Younger in contemplation on a fine carved family seat and rail. He wore a plain tunic and shoes, was bareheaded and unarmed. I was left alone with him—in fact, we were entirely alone in the church.

It was a strange—even irreligious place I thought then—to discuss non-holy business.

“My father promised you something, is this right? He told me that.”

“Yes. To maintain our freedom and right of travel, with the approval of His Eminence’s court.”

“His Eminence’s court is otherwise occupied and will remain so for a long time.”

His sighed and looked up at a carving—very old and fine—of St. Guthlac. He was a much-revered holy man on the fens, and I felt sad even at that terrible time for abandoning the fens.

Sidroc seemed to be—perhaps was—different than before.

“A promise made is kept, even if one of the parties is tainted by Norman monks. You take your wife and go where you will.” Then he turned to me, and, raising a finger, pointed at the ceiling, “But you misstep here, and I will hang you, Liveryman.”

“Sir, I cannot go at once. My wife lost a child the previous evening and is gravely ill in the courtyard.”

“I have lost two wives and many children. Such is God’s will.”

I was emboldened—if such a promise was being kept—to risk more, for Cwenburh was risking her life: “My items, our items. I have simple but needed tools with them—to get by.”

“You have your lives. Stop whining and go.”

The same guard came in—by what signal, I cannot say, but it was on the mark. He shoved me out the way I came, and I was struggling with the good news amongst the bad when he took me hard by the shoulder, and pulled me into a small archway. He looked about cautiously, then drew me towards himself, but somewhat more gently. It was with relief I saw him put aside his staff.

“I have heard you can write our language.”

“I can.”

“My wife is desperate to tell her mother plain things of family, and in her village—many leagues south. I get no peace. My wife says there are priests there who read. I know a way to get the message to her mother. If you write it, I can see you are rewarded, for I heard your plight.”

He was ready for my answer, although truly I did not have any choice. When I consented, he at once led me inside. In a tiny nook with a single candle he had gathered paper, goose feather, and ink—from where I cannot say, but they were of good quality.

His brutishness hid a schemer.

The guard’s information was what a daughter would want to tell her mother not seen in over a decade—of children, home, and such. It took an hour, at most. Drying the ink, he rolled it up and put it in a small round case.

“Now follow.”

He knew the warrens of the residence well, and we came to a doorway where lay two guards so besotted with ale, they were asleep. A bucket lay on its side, and the companionway reeked unmistakably of strong, barley ale—not the cheap sort.

On the fens, such Saxon ambrosia was rarely afforded, and when it was, the eelmen could not attend work for two days after.

He kicked one’s leg aside that blocked the doorway, and once inside a single window admitted light to see. There upon a platform were numerous stacks of plundered items, the responsibility of the guards.

My escort took me, turned me as one might a stubborn animal, and pointed at the lot, “Take two things. Quickly. This is your pay. Say anything, and you will suffer triple what I do, and I promise that.”

In fact, he pushed me forward and there was so many items, my head spun around—desperate as I was with Cwenburh’s awful plight. But though never of warrior’s brawn or imposing looks, God in his kindness gave me plain wit to make up for it.

Knowing I was being paid in items not his, in fact we were taking part in a theft, God forgive, though, I did not hesitate. I choose a beautiful Saxon knife in a sewn pig-leather case and a wrought metal clasp, an item of plenty value. He looked to the ceiling in disgust when I took the clasp.

“Greedy dog!”

He was about to renege, but a sound of laughter outside the window caused him to bolt. He shoved me out—again kicked aside the guard’s leg—with a bit more force than needed—and told me to make sure I hid the items; then he turned me on a heel, and warned, “And you keep that clasp hidden until gone from here, goddamn you. Now as Sidroc has directed, I will tell the sergeant of your freedom. But you and I? We have never spoken.”

With a parting shove, I was sent into the courtyard—hot and reeking again with the rising heat. I was told at once that Cwenburh still lived, but Matilda, herself having just recently given birth, cautioned, “The girl has the stamina of a mare; if it were me, I would have joined God. None of us have seen the likes of it. Surely it is your prayers. Our prayers.”

“I am free now, and will fetch her what quickly I can at market. Tell me exactly what I must get.”

“How might you pay, God help us, with thin air?”

In ten days, Cwenburh came to trust Matilda more than anyone else, and indeed the two had similar spirits, though the latter was experienced in so many more ways than Cwenburh and myself. With Alfred and Gertyn, who sullied the word ‘Mother’ by calling the train’s women ‘daughters,’ Matilda led a difficult and sordid life.

I showed Matilda the clasp and knife.

“These are a long ways from thin air, Matilda. The clasp is worth much.”

She gasped, reached out, and, grabbing my hand and the clasp, closed my hand with her two around it.

“Are you mad?! That adorned the kirtle of a rich woman, certainly slain! In the market, you would be set on like fleas upon an old dog when you show that to barter. People will ask what is this poor bedraggled devil doing with it? How did he come by it? All would ask that first, and word would fly about like a flock of rooks. Jesus, save us, Cuthwin. Use good sense. Bartering that will take time and the right place.”

She begged me to hide it, and I knew she was right. With no time for thought, when my eye set on such a fine clasp, I allowed my greed to rule. Surely, the clasp was a lesser version of that great meathound: poor people do not come by finery honestly.

That left the knife—the one item I could use for making dozens of items to survive in field and hills. But though well wrought, a freedman having possession of it would arouse no suspicion.

Matilda indicated it.

“Sell it! It should bring three shillings, if you hold your price. Now go! But keep that clasp hidden, Cuthwin, or you and it will be seized by the undersheriff, who in Hereford, as with most places, is as rotten a soul as Satan might ever create.”

I left Matilda—who repeated her warning and told me again the potions needed. It was difficult to set the price of such a fine knife as this. In daily tasks, especially when making one’s way overland, it was a necessity, a lifetime companion.

Yet I needed help for Cwenburh, and the knife and clasp were a windfall—God reaching down to help her. After a momentary confrontation with the guards about my new freedom—I walked around them and out, reversing my path upon arrival.

I would to the fair and market. Desperate as I was, I did not care about the risk.

It was a somber irony that the previous year’s Lammastide fair and market I had spent at Peterborough. It was there when Cwenburh and I kept company together for the first time, and it was a joyful time. I was given the day free by both Brother Cassartorius and Gilbert, the latter knowing the reason for my increased exuberance over market days.

It was a grand day spent following Cwenburh and her mother Gytha from stall to shop, hearing them arguing—trading and bartering—for a year’s worth of diverse items needed.

I was their attendant, carrying this—fetching that—sharing in indignation when price was too high, or too low. And the endless joy experiencing all these different peoples and hundreds of items never seen.

And all the time, as I scolded her later, Cwenburh wove her clever women’s web about me, capturing me forever.

Though Lammastide at Hereford was distant, it was not dissimilar to that at Peterborough, itself a great place. Yet my feelings and necessity for this one could hardly be more starkly different in spirit.

I felt no joy now, threading my way through the crowds and arrays—keeping alert for the dozens of thieves and such who populate these events. For working in livery at Peterborough Monastery, I experienced many fairs, markets, and holy day festivals during my seven years.

On any Lammastide fair, pitfalls and advantages accompanied such occasions when money, property, and business all came into one. Bad people swarmed and it was for their presence the undersheriff had wardens circulating, their tassels of office dangling prominently from their waist. And as with all fairs and markets, there were stop-boards at the gates and other entries to the town.

At these stop-boards, taxes and tariffs were collected. The first geld was collected on arrival, and the second leaving—by whoever’s authority presided over fair or market, which in Hereford’s case was the beneficial grace of His Eminence. These many decades gone by, I can say Normans conduct such affairs with a far greedier and more severe hand. If Normans find one avoiding or holding out fees and such, or sniff out thieves, he is hanged or executed at once.

In Saxon times, if criminals were apprehended doing bad deed, they would not necessarily be hanged. Saxons altogether kept a looser weave on things: Some minor officials at gate could be bribed; also, bold truants could slip out at night without paying, evidently as Alfred-of-Aylesbury had done—or was said to have done.

In years prior to Norman conquest, Saxons all took risks and short cuts, for if caught, often got off with nothing but a drubbing by rod or staff.

It occurred to me the knife might be easily identified as stolen—as it surely was—because the case was finely sewn pig-leather and could identify an owner. Such work had its own design and to those familiar would identify it. The knife, however, was of sound craftsmanship; but dozens of such were around countrywide. When bought, they often came without a case.

Being caught would not help Cwenburh, so I removed the case and put it with the clasp for later bargain. I anticipated a need of it.

When coming out of the inner gate, I was paid little mind by the wardens. I suppose this was because I was poor in appearance and empty-handed. But when I approached the outside wall—inside which the most expensive and privileged pavilions were arranged—a warden came up, looked me up and down, and pointed, half in jest, and half otherwise. “A cotset like you must have something to sell, or you are a thief, or both.”

The dog was half in his cups, for wardens often were favored at every shop selling drink and food. This one had made a day of it and it wasn’t yet Sext. I said I was a livery worker in need of repast. I asked him the best shop for a good heavy slab of lammasloaf and strong barley ale, and as I guessed he was a walking advocate for one. His favorite was his brother-in-law’s which was outside of the walls.

What I sought indeed was outside the walls and row-ditch for inside the walls were rich traders and merchants with finery such as fabrics and metals, beyond a poor person’s means.

It being summer and long dry, the row-ditch itself was the place of livestock markets—where temporary paddocks were easily made, and paths and temporary steps were worn or installed. For there, a herdsman was at his keenest and most vociferous. A great collection of voices came from there from both creatures and men.

Vendors were also down there selling wares held before them on trays—knowing that where there is trading, silver pennies and shillings might part from a usually tightly closed purse.

As I passed over the row-ditch, flies and smells nearly lifted me up, and I hurried beyond. I surveyed vendors’ boards and pavilions outside the row-ditch and immediately encountered the neighborhood I required.

My feelings of guilt were on increase.

I endured anguish knowing that Cwenburh’s ordeal was, in the end, my doing. She had been willing to stay at Loe while I traipsed about on Monastery circuit throughout their holdings in duty to the Subcellarer and Father Abbot.

Now we were a hundred leagues and half again distant from our homes. With dismal determination, I got on with it.

Along the shops in the wide middle row demarked with cloth partitions were carved wooden signs common to specific trades and business. I looked for a buckler-sized pence, for this indicated a goods and money trader. Soon I was looking up at such a sign hung from a post by woven line and painted a bright silver, the largest of the group.

I noted this pence had the previous king’s portrait on it, so it had been a business established for some time—one who believed a keen wood-carving worthy of its craft, even if out-of-date.

This was, like all of them, businesses that exchanged in money and bought things for same. It was common then for one merchant to do both.

Indeed, there were a half-dozen of them. Not getting proper price at one, I could go to another. At Peterborough, I never entered one of these, but waited outside for a Brother who collected tariffs from them—and they always spoke with disdain for their proprietors.

“They are cheats and demon-worshipers, worldly, ill-spoken Londoners,” one Brother always told tell me while putting Father Abbot’s fee in one of the great Cellarers’ embossed wallets. Indeed my responsibility was to carry it for the Brother, which made me unseemly proud.

But I hesitated now; which one of these half-dozen should I select? What were they like inside? Were all run by Londoners, notorious sorts from any part of the world? They spoke Saxon with a harsh accent, annoying to the ear. And it was said they always did so rapidly, especially in trading, to confuse.

But it was the place with the grand wooden sign I entered.

Inside was partitioned by hangings of ordinary cloth made to improve the look of the place. Items were placed here and there, but not strewn—in rows by type.

Sitting on a stool manipulating stones upon a strange flat board was a small Saxon wearing a high-peaked hat of red cloth decorated with a partridge tail feather. Seeing me, he covered the board with a cloth. My distraction had somehow delayed me spotting, to my left, sitting crosslegged on the floor, the largest human creature I’d ever seen. He polished metal implements, including ware and pots to a good shine—his lower lip held between his teeth as he labored. He wore plain leather breeches, tunic, and turnshoes.

At once fear took me: A half-dozen wardens with staffs couldn’t contain such a beast if he got loose, or set out with violence on his mind. The proprietor said proudly, “That is Cyrus, whom many call ‘The Great.’”

When Cyrus looked up—a gaze like an ox distracted at his trough—his brows straightened, and I saw eyes that reflected more than the sense of an ox, yet thankfully like an ox did not contain an evil gleam in them—which gave me balm. He pointed at himself and admitted, “Yes. ‘The Great.’ This is true.”

Then he chuckled and returned to work.

“And I am Ahulf, owner here, a benefice given me by God’s kind grace. What do you desire: To sell, buy, trade, or some combination? I do all of that, fairly, of course. Cyrus can vouch for that.”

Cyrus grunted, put aside a pot—took up another far larger one.

Ahulf looked as capable of sniffing out a lie as a rat might a bit of suet. I decided nothing would be gained in couching the truth.

“My wife is within the city. She lost a child this day, and remains at death’s door, and I need to sell my knife for medicines.”

And I took out the knife and placed it on the cloth covering his device. He at once held both palms out, gesturing his helplessness.

“I am sorry for you and wish you and your wife God’s Mercy. But I cannot give more money for an item than it is worth, or I would myself be at death’s door. Would we not, Cyrus?”

He grunted again—but now looked up at me, then to the knife. He started to say something, but did not. At that point I did not know Cyrus’s other skill nor how he had come by his epithet.

“Then, it is worth nothing?”

“I did not say that. By the way, what is your name?”

“Cuthwin.”

“So, Cuthwin. I did not say that. What I said was that it is a plain knife. I see many and have many. So it is not worth but, at most, two pence.”

Since it was worth seven or eight times that, I struggled down wrath. By such cruel dealings, no wonder he needed someone of Cyrus’s mass about to prevent having harm done him.

I picked up the knife to go elsewhere, and was too angry to consider that a wall with two legs like Cyrus could prevent me from going anywhere—or indeed, just take the knife from me and kick or throw me from the door.

Ahulf put his hand out and took me by the sleeve, admitting he might do better, considering the circumstances, reminding me he was a man given to our Savior’s example of giving pity to those troubled.

He asked Cyrus if that were not the case, to which—as he always did—Cyrus grunted an assent.

Cyrus the Great betrayed a trace of a smile, and thanks be to God, I understood I had begun the path of bartering, and as such must wrestle on. It was my first trading.

After all, it was what Gytha did often at market—many times both she and daughter rained bad words upon their opponent and received them in turn. And this was done a half-dozen times in a day without bad feelings afterward.

During our bargaining, Ahulf swept away the cloth covering his numbers device and attacked its stones like a crazed baker—checking and re-checking numbers that he tossed about. Always finding Cyrus in agreement with his calculations. He would point at the board, and accuse, “Do you, a liveryman,” for by now, he knew most of me, “doubt the numbers from this ancient, venerable device? My profits are just not there.”

In the end, I could get no more than one schilling, three pence, which was just enough for the medicines, but I didn’t know what sum—if anything—might remain.

I was tired—had I taken so long that Cwenburh might have died, or grown beyond help? It was so hot I was drenched in sweat, angry, and still possessed of that awful sense of guilt.

So, I took the money.

I now had to shop for medicines, get them and perhaps even fetch a healing woman. Cyrus stood with the ease of a smaller man, but his size made his action appear like a mountain sprouting from earth.

“I suppose you now need medicines? I often have need of them, and know one of the best.”

While putting on his wide-brimmed hat, he looked at Ahulf who nodded back in agreement, “You will do well with Cyrus, God bless him. Cyrus knows his medicine people.”

I followed as he bent low, emerging into the hot midday air reeking with animal smells and thick with ubiquitous swarms of flies. He swept absently at the air, and gestured me to come alongside him.

Everyone, or so it seemed, looked at Cyrus as he loped along, and most greeted him and he them—sometimes with a high wave of his hand. They asked him about fights—praising past and asking about future struggles. He saw my confusion, for fighting was strictly forbidden, and despite size, he seemed a peaceful sort. He stopped—removed his hat and mopped his thick head of hair while smiling and looking down at me.

“On the day before each festival Sabbath, I wrestle all comers in the outer arena. These matches are popular and make money. I am bitten and gouged always. Potions and salves of Mistress Braugh have saved me many a miserable fester, and she is true in price.”

I was—even at that urgent moment—flummoxed with such a notion.

“God forbid! Who would pay to see men harm one another?”

Cyrus looked down, hesitating a step; his brows knitted up, and he sighed. “Young Cuthwin, there are many strange doings in this world and people will pay to see them, God forgive us all.”

Then he resumed, but once more was intercepted by children wanting him to heft them up, and he did so on the move giving good sport. In a few more furlongs, we arrived where healers were set up. There were nearly a dozen pavilions, each belong to different sort of practitioners.

Those with signs used a diverse array of carved symbols to inform passersby of their skills and crafts. Most carved images were inspired by images from the heavens or garden, some both. For all understood healing to be in concert with the heavens, and gardens a source of strong potion and salve.

Cyrus stopped before one with a carving of a man holding a splinter of a waning moon—it was very weathered.

“Mistress Braugh is sharp with words but expert in craft, no doubt. At one time, she was a York beauty, with great men beating on the doors at her quarters.”

When he entered her pavilion, I saw an elderly woman, dressed in mostly white cloth but garnished with deep blue cloth, and further enhanced with patches of many colors.

Her hair was long and grey—almost white, and left unbound flowing down her shoulders. Her features were like a hawk—her nose as long as any Saxon woman might have. Her height and frame was so slender, she seemed an angle with movement. No doubt, Mistress Braugh cast an imposing, unique figure.

She was castigating her assistant in an even but severe voice. Her assistant was the first black-skinned human I had seen, blacker than a moonless night. I stood flat while Mistress Braugh cast a gaze on Cyrus, closed her eyes and moaned, “Gouged and bitten again, Cyrus, you great oaf? Someday you will fail in the cure, and they’ll lop off your leg or arm. Who is that green-around-the-gills boy with you—did you break his arm? His eyes are popping out! Has he never seen an African? Or a girl? Which is it? If I am to be a show for simpletons, I want King’s silver.”

“My wife just lost a child and is close to death and needs medicines,” I blurted out. And I repeated the three sorts of herbs Matilda said I must get. Idle talk ended.

“It will take three pence for the medicines, and I’ll attend and apply them for one shilling two. That is my fee and I do not barter. I am not dealing in sheep.”

“I have one shilling three, good lady, and no more, so I must just get the medicines and let Alfred’s daughters apply them.”

With no bartering or nonsense, I would get back all the sooner with medicines in hand.

She looked to Cyrus and they held upon each other for a moment—his eyes asked for what I didn’t. She slapped the African girl on her tiny buttocks and scolded, “Eavesdropping! Get to work! You don’t understand Saxon anyway, you twerp.”

“I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

She glared at Cyrus, then extended her arm to me. “Then give the coin to me, and we will be off. If she is dead, then I’ll just charge a ha’penny for the walk through all this Lammastide filth and heat.”

She preceded me, guessing out loud where she was bound, mentioning several of Alfred’s girls by name, including kindly mention for good Matilda, lamenting her present trials. The news of Alfred’s demise and the seizure of his train were high news at Lammastide in Hereford.

“The old squint Gertyn should have talked Alfred from traveling anywhere close to Hereford. She is lucky not be hanged herself. Alfred was a stubborn one for his money, and she just as greedy.”

Two wardens blocked her path—though they rested a leery eye on Cyrus, who decided to follow us within the walls. Braugh carried a staff to help her walk, and no doubt she had other skills with it—for the wardens kept their distance when she raised it.

“What do you two coupling dogs want?”

“Want?! Tariff, you old bag. You enter on business.”

“You two wager wisely on me. Will you again?” Cyrus interceded.

They looked at Cyrus who said this cheerfully. I was so distraught, I just wanted on with it. Later I found they let us pass without collecting a tariff and the why of it: They wagered on wrestling, declared contrary to God’s Will by His Eminence. Great dispensation could be had, though, if His Eminence’s Secretary or Reeve got geld from all players’ winnings. Only, of course, if these personages knew of such gambling. Few, including these two, wanted to risk sharing past good fortune with His Eminence.

When we reached the wagons, Matilda greeted us with less sadness, for Cwenburh was holding steady, and making, if anything, a harder fight of it. They knew Braugh at once—impressed I fetched the finest healing woman.

Matilda embraced me of a sudden, very bold and hard, and told me that now Cwenburh had great skill on her side, in addition to God’s grace. And, furthermore, that I should go within and pray to Our Savior, for certainly it was up to the powers of him and the Father.

I lost at once the companionship of Cyrus. He was surrounded by Alfred’s daughters who he knew by name. The carpenter and his sons—and especially the Lombards—attended him. To these foreigners even ordinary-sized Saxons were impressed—they were dumbfounded by Cyrus.

Matilda had good advice—I had much to pray and make contrition for. I moved wearily through various inner warrens and found St. Guthlac Church, where I had received my freedom from Sidroc-the-Younger.

I avoided that end of the church, knelt, and made prayer. About me was the silence and smell of incense and candles. It was too long since I prayed in one of God’s great houses, and I felt peace settle over me.

I heard a few people coming and going in old St. Guthlac Church. Long ago, but years after this moment, Guthlac’s house of worship was burned to the ground by cruel Welshman. These hard men, like so many, practiced the blasphemy of returning violence with violence, a wheel that turned relentlessly, a bane to Our Savior.

At the time of my youth, it was a quiet salubrious shelter where even an ordinary soul could pray in the sure presence of the Lord.

The holy building’s aged wood took sounds and sent them from one side to the other, creating haunting echoes, as if you prayed in a giant wooden cup. I heard steps approaching from behind and a clearing of the throat. I looked back, for I hoped for news of Cwenburh. It was a young priest.

He had a sickly pallor and reddishness around the eyes, and he held a tiny box as if it were inordinately heavy. He said his name and God has graced me by allowing it to have left my memory. He extended the box in my direction—holding it in both palms.

“This holds your stillborn child and needs burial in consecrated ground with all the honor given any Innocent in death. The days are hot and time brings corruption.”

My selfish omission in thinking after my stillborn child, and the physical and holy treatment of its mortal remains, struck me hard.

“This church’s good Deacon has given me this holy task, but we must at once, I am afraid.”

I rose, possibly to take the box which held the child. But he withdrew it slightly, dropped his eyes and said there was the cost of the box, made of cedar, and then the burial tariff: “His Eminence’s people do much for all the surrounding souls in both town and field. Such fees, God help us, despite talk of coin being harsh at this sad time, is the way of things, Cuthwin-of-Loe.”

“I have no money, Father.”

“Nothing of worth, my Son?”

I at once thought of the clasp, but certainly it was worth ten-times what His Eminence might charge for the burial of a tiny box, which meant I would have to sell it. That would take expedience, so I was again pressed. In my pause he assumed I was withholding and his eyes rested on me—questioning, “There is a clasp, my Son.”

This, as well as the error in my village-of-origin, raised suspicions. Matilda would never tell anyone of it—which is how he must have mislearned my name. She knew the risk of having the clasp—it was she who had implored me to keep it hidden. A Secret.

Seeing my confusion, he added kindly, “One of the harlots told me of it, my Son.”

My mind caught up with events: Only three souls knew of the clasp, Matilda and the guard who paid me with pillage. And I remembered his angry words at my choice.

In the end I would pay anything to prevent our child’s unshriven soul to be cast off without proper Christian burial. So the guard’s plan, in league with this priest, had gotten the clasp back—for themselves, of course.

Of the moment I had a physical feeling of absence, and like many such sensations, one is not aware until it comes to mind. I no longer could feel the gentle push of the metal clasp secured between my waist band and skin. My hand went there anyway, confirming what my senses told me: It was not there!

“Father, God forbid, but the clasp is gone!”

Like the rise of a sudden squall over the fens, his face soured. He stooped, put the box on the floor, and announced, “Then I needs keep this box, and you do with the remains what you will. God help its poor, unshriven soul because of your parsimony.”

Stooping, he opened the box, removed a piece of cloth, and perfunctorily put it on the flagstone, then stood and stalked off.

Anyone with the God-given stuff of saintliness within would not have become possessed of thoughts seizing me at that moment. I was just a boy, and blood runs hot—prone to harsh decision and action. Yet I was in sanctuary of St. Guthlac, which made the guard’s and priest’s sins and my unpardonable urges more a travesty upon our Savior’s teaching.

As I make witness here—almost eighty years hence—I say that no person thought of as a potential Saint, as I am now by some, might have generated such wild desires for the death by his own hand of other souls, and one—a priest—ordained by God.

But it was God’s ceaseless mercy and sure hand that had brought me to sell the knife and not the clasp.

At that most cynical and dark moment, I learned later, I ran—a raving lunatic—from within into the courtyard frothing and ranting, as if possessed of a fiend. Worse, I seized one of the few heavy implements—a great lever for putting the yoke on oxen. At that moment, the brave souls, God bless them—the carpenter and his sons—tackled and sat atop me, the only way they could contain me; beneath them, the carpenter said later, “You flopped like a giant pike, Cuthwin. God forbid. You scared the shit out of us.”

Also I carried the limp cloth holding what I thought held our dead child, placing it upon the cart before scrambling for a weapon.

Matilda was called, and trying to prevent the guard overhearing, stuffed an edge of her kirtle into my mouth to stop my murderous ravings. In my eighteen years I had seen only a few rave, taken by madness, a demon—or both. I thank God I had never experienced it myself until then, and never to repeat.

“Cuthwin, for Love of God. Stop!”

Thus I remember Matilda (for my memory was returning) shouting into my ear only moments after a tiny flask in the hands of a hastily called Braugh forced some foul elixir in my flapping mouth. The carpenter held me until I swallowed it. It had a bitter, awful taste that wafted up through my passages, smarting terribly. Braugh lamented, “And who will pay for that!? God bless me for my stupid heart.”

And Braugh peered close into my eye as one might into a knothole looking for a squirrel’s horde. Over the Healing Woman’s shoulder, Matilda looked at me. A great pressure was kept on me by the carpenter’s two boys until I felt a strange wave of heaviness take me from the inside, and my limbs went slack.

Braugh disappeared from my view—vision which was fast becoming dream-like. Matilda made scornful noises and scolded, her kind voice watery—each word writ large on my demented mind: “Cuthwin! Don’t you know how corrupt these town priests are? It wasn’t even the remains of your child—or any child. Remember this, those bastards do this all the time. You nearly spoilt everything—and Cwenburh gaining ground on her affliction.”

Whatever plants or dark substances were key to Braugh’s potion, they were the stuff of demons, certainly not God’s. I sank away—only remembering Matilda’s scolding me.

What followed wasn’t a sleep; then again it was.

I remember only vaguely dreams that possessed me then, but surely they were borne by demons carrying arrays of evil pleasure. They sang sweet calls of melodies that made all seem to be swathed in innocence and honesty. What might any of us do when so skillfully harkened by the darkest angel of all? Indeed, had not the severest want been put on Our Savior in the harsh desert, testing even Him.

I would only tell events in those dreams to a confessor, never to the light of day.

The matter of my soul and mind returned with the encroachment of light and the sound of voices. I made out the vague face of good Matilda, then others. Soon, I could see sufficiently to understand. I had been moved inside to lie next to Cwenburh. Her eyes were open and she looked at me as I perceived dimensions of my shelter—first the floor of the cart above us. My head felt as if a massive turnip had replaced it.

But Cwenburh was alive—though white as a mushroom and sapped utterly. Even then, her eyes—the love and care in them—brought a wash of balm over me.

“Cuthwin, you’ve made a great madness. Matilda here told me—hard to believe, God be served.”

Matilda and another sister moved in fast, for I was at once sick—experiencing an ague equal to that of the foulest hog cholera.

“Oh, I’m dying. Jesus help me. I was poisoned.”

Between the various retching of this foulness, I was told by Matilda—who had little sympathy—that I had fallen into a stupor for over a day. “And you pissed yourself like a geezer in his cups.”

Matilda and her sister shared a great laugh about that—and Cwenburh, so very weak, reached out and took my wrist, holding tight. That she lived and was next to me was three times the good of any elixir on earth.

Struggling to full awareness, I was informed of events during my madness—and how I was in the debt of Braugh. Matilda sat between Cwenburh and me, lecturing me about how grateful I should be to the Healing Woman. Then feigning stern countenance, she looked with mock admonishment upon Cwenburh.

“You must order this mulish Cwenburh to give over that clasp, Cuthwin. Seeing it was the draw prompting the old woman to work on strength of future payment. The Healing Woman is beyond anything we might trade.”

Cwenburh opened her hand that lay weakly across her bosom, and there the clasp was—and she looked down at it, then over to me, ignoring my shock. It was a God-ordained miracle to see it again.

“Tell Matilda I will keep this always, Cuthwin. It is your bride price, and I ask our Savior’s forgiveness for false pride, but I deserve it. I will be buried with it.”

A look to me, then Matilda—who was giving suck to her child—conveyed the immutability of her declaration: no one would ever have possession of that clasp while Cwenburh lived. Scurrying into the makeshift sick room, another of her sisters looked at the clasp. Cwenburh handed it to her to examine fondly.

In fact, over the last two days it became a great attraction in the train. One of the sisters was Norman and said something quick in her tongue, pushing Matilda roguishly on her forehead.

“Cuthwin, this creature here in her foul tongue says to learn another thing: Do not let an evil woman embrace you firmly. As girls under direction from Gertyn, we learn the art of lifting men’s purses and wallets for survival in this harsh world. When tits and quim are pressed close, men forget their possibles.”

Two of the sisters shared a chuckle on that. Their mirth provided explanation for the mystery of the clasp’s voyage, for it began with Matilda’s sudden embrace of me.

My ills were slight compared to Cwenburh’s, so I recovered strength quickly. My concerns were the disposition of our stillborn child and the new debt. Since I was senseless, and Cwenburh yet very ill, Matilda instructed the carpenter’s two sons to simply scale the fence on Hereford’s outermost cemetery and bury it in a careful grave, marking it so Cwenburh and I could attend when well. This solved the issue over whether our dear soul could be put to rest in consecrated ground. Later I learned this is how the sisters of Alfred’s train buried one of their own, knowing that permission would never be granted.

“This way, God will make the decision,” Matilda explained, which to us sounded right. For did not the teachings of Our Savior condemn no one?

The clasp was a less sad topic but practically raised a thorny, hard-to-reckon situation.

The clasp was no longer an asset, and that left me to confront Mistress Braugh with an awkward and contrary piece of information regards debt.

Walking up and down the courtyard, regaining my legs, gave me opportunity for thought.

These contemplations were cut short by the carpenter who gently informed that I bit and gouged his sons in my madness. So in addition to other service, the Healing Woman treated them to prevent the foulness, for bites are the nastiest of wounds.

Yet this was not his concern—gouged and bitten sons were of no importance to the carpenter now. He and his family were of great cheer with the news: Alfred’s entire train—people, properties and all, had been sold to a Saxon merchant from York as a great investment. He was a cousin to His Eminence and had been visiting the great man for Lammastide.

“And he will put us all to work as it was before, with Gertyn managing things. She has a keener eye for coin than Alfred, who was prone to shortcuts regards money. This rich Saxon summoned his Secretary here, and he and His Eminence’s Secretary are learned businessmen, no doubt.”

So all the criminal and immoral doings attached to the late Alfred-of-Aylesbury’s train were either forgiven or absolved in a holy vapor of silver coin.

Also, sale to His Eminence’s kinsman would extend contrition for individuals in Alfred’s train burdened with sin. Powerful churchmen had long-reaching powers to forgive and extend God’s mercy.

The carpenter at once detected my hesitancy.

“So dour, Cuthwin? It is God’s will and good fortune all in one, do you not see?! There is a place for you. I gave him my best word about you. For this clever Secretary has sold the ox and purchased horses! Think of what that change will require! He also sold both of these wheeled giants, and bought four smaller.”

He went on while I sank into difficult thinking on top of simple debt.

There is advantage to anticipating trouble, but the disadvantage is worry. I knew disagreements were coming between Cwenburh and me—especially as she regained strength, though her rate of healing was yet unknown.

Gossip being one of her favorite idles when well, convalescing under the wagon gave her vast exposure to it. She would hear of these business changes the carpenter spoke of—indeed, would have already heard of them. Along with that would be word of my chance at employ.

Had we not ventured to Hereford for work?

This would be as far as Cwenburh would take contemplations. She had of course grown to love her sisters, and in fact owed her life to them. Grateful to even a simple hen for such bounty as an egg, Cwenburh would remain true for life to those unfortunate women.

I had been of far less use than they, and I owed them, too.

But my seven years at Peterborough Monastery taught me strict religious tenets. A poor person, unlike those rich and powerful with their own confessors at hand daily, had to show adherence to the teachings of God for fear of one’s immortal soul.

Though I was not a Brother—not a clerk of any sort—my main source in learning to read and write was the venerable King Alfred’s Bible in our language, amongst other religious works.

The seven deadly sins were an unyielding center of the holy teaching. Each dominated the lessons and sermons of the prophets. They prepared common people for lurking dangers. And certainly, central to these were Lust and Greed.

Even a forgiving soul like Father Abbot knew Satan inhabited a train such as Alfred-of-Aylesbury and that I must quit it even if it meant begging for trenchers at door stops.

However, Cwenburh was of a simple belief that God did not condemn those who did no violence or harm to others, especially by design. And the sisters, she would claim, did not do that, or ever would.

That would be the surface of her thinking and the end of it.

Venturing outside the walls, I thanked God for Cwenburh’s life, but this struggle did poorly in overcoming the selfishness over my own troubles. The primary issue was the need in confronting Braugh with the truth, and she was not a charitable woman.

It was a bright Herefordshire summer morning. Rooks and other birds scurried and fought bitterly over the bounty of grisly pickings down in the animal markets.

Swooping through the scourge of flies, hordes of jeweled swallows dived. Chirring their feeding song, stopping, turning in mid-wing, they twirled back through their masses of prey, filling their bellies. All this was a simple cycle of God’s ways.

At the market’s conclusion, city officers would just open up the gates to the adjacent River Wye, allowing it to flood through one end of the ditch, and out the other—washing clean the animal market refuse in a single pass. These creatures sensed the end of their bounty was near and were intense in their business.

I ached for breakfast. Driving other odors aside, I smelled food everywhere. Proximate were dozens of nooks and shops selling all sorts of victuals. I arrived at Braugh’s pavilion with hunger plaguing me and not feeling optimistic.

I found her like before, sitting on a low stool, but now sorting various herbs and such into tidy small piles on a square-cut piece of leather. The black girl sat near by laboring at mortar and pestle while humming a strange tune and grinding a pile of dried berries to a powder.

“So, Cuthwin, you have my money? It is three pence.”

I explained why the clasp would not be sold but how I was good for the money, “as God is my witness.” She did not alter her work, or look up while I tended my news.

I missed Cyrus awfully—fearing she might leap up and administer one of those horrible potions by some magical way.

She left me standing. The black girl stopped her work—looked up, perhaps to appeal for patience, instead suggesting, “We could call Cyrus, and he would gladly pulverize this fellow, Mistress.”

“Shut up, you little ebony pissant! Mind your craft—you are poor enough at it.”

But a customer entered before matters became grimmer—before I could plead further. Braugh found me in the way, so pointed at the floor, and I sat. The elderly Saxon was showing signs of a good burden of beer and ale even this early. He delivered a hefty slap to his vast gut and chest, and announced his business.

“I am randy enough. But I need powder to strengthen the pith in my old ram—he has trouble tupping the ewes, but he is of great stock, and I need his line for the lambs.”

They went eye to eye—two chickens confronting over a morsel—perhaps it was the strength found in his cups that enabled him to hold. Braugh looked him over—beginning at his bare feet, then stopped at the tip of his small hat.

“Six pence.”

“God’s Mercy on me, Mistress!”

And they began—contentions I’d heard before in Peterborough market and now here.

When he paid for his powder—handed to him in a small bark cylinder—I made accurate guess Cyrus would not harm me over the debt. Braugh passed coins to the black girl who put them in a clay pot. Her eye returned to me.

“It is said you are clever in the way of reading and writing our language and not that gibberish priests mutter?”

“I am, thanks be to God.”

“Then, in exchange for money owed, I would have you write down many of my mixings and powders, for my memory is growing shifty. I can read, but cannot write, not without slowness with the simplest letters. I have tried only too often.”

The black girl and I exchanged looks. She made something of a face and put a tiny leaf in her mouth and chewed happily.

“Don’t look at her, Cuthwin-of-Alnwick. That creature would be pagan still, if it were not for my intervention.”

“Yes, Mistress, I have a piece of the true cross.”

While Braugh and the girl eyed each other over her claim, I recognized my decision was clear so agreed at once. She had paper and ink with many goose quills, and said I would start after Sabbath, today being the day preceding.

“Your wife will take a month to repair, and you are to keep your husbandly hands off her for that long, if not more” and she made a resentful look while her assistant enjoyed a chuckle around her wad of leaf. “Young husbands care more for themselves than their wives.” She thought a moment, and drawing breath while filling and sealing up a tiny cylinder, added, “So be off with you now—but you need coin to buy her hefty bone for broth and some lammasbread. I will get the money out of you, no doubt. Remember well your ill wife, and don’t waste it. Cyrus will fight a bear again at the pit around Vespers. Men folk enjoy that sort of gawk, but do not bet, the bear and Cyrus are long friends.”

She extended her hand, and the African girl opened the pot with coin, and handed me five silver pennies, the King’s face freshly struck in their middle.

A renewed spirit took hold.

Meandering a return, I mused on this being the third time in two weeks my skills learned at Peterborough provided a gateway from trouble. Would not Braugh leave at the end of Lammastide, to ply her skills at other places? But when the market and fair folk left—as all such businesses do—where would a recovering Cwenburh and I stay or eat?

Hereford wasn’t the precincts of a Monastery or Abbey, but so far had proven a harsh town with people of church or business keen of money. I hoped the sisterhood of Alfred’s train might advise in these confusions, and I felt again the shame of judging them.

First I bought hefty lammasloaf—and immediately indulged in a hunk. I descended a path into the row-ditch where the butchers plied. A slab of a Saxon tradesman looked me up and down, his bloody leather vest pestered by flies which he batted away with an impatient hand. “A good bone is not cheap these days—to go along with that bread you are stuffing in your face.”

He was indeed a vast hog of a fellow with bristles growing out of his nostrils, ugly in all manner, his character echoing his person. While I made business, his fellows were shouting great speculations about Cyrus’s upcoming battle and how they might bet.

I still considered the gentle colossus’s words about the ‘strange doings’ of his mention. Certainly a man fighting such a beast as a bear—other men in turn watching and betting on the outcome—was blasphemy of a sort.

I knew Our Savior preached gentleness and bloodless conduct for everyone, including the beasts of field and forest. Cyrus was a benevolent soul, and how could his plight ever be construed as God’s Will?

I was again faced with thorny issues without ready answer. It was sad irony that just that spring I knew comfort and steadiness in life at Peterborough, with Cwenburh securely in that same life.

I had bungled that stability away and it would never return. God has by now, I pray, forgiven me.

While smelling the broth brewing from outside our makeshift chamber, I watched Cwenburh nibble away bits of bread like a ravenous mouse.

“Mistress Braugh did not seem upset or surprised when I did not have the money.”

“Oh, I expect not,” she replied, then paused, took a second thought, then offered, “. . . healing women are odd sorts, knowledgeable in the way of mysteries.”

Later I slipped out of Cwenburh’s convalescing chamber, for sleep was her greatest friend. I fell into talk with the carpenter; he was filled with the day’s news.

At center of it of course was the newly reconsolidated train and its livery. It would have its first engagement for business beginning on St. Bartholomew’s Day²⁵ at the sumptuous fair and market in Worcester.

“We have almost twenty days to prepare, Cuthwin. Ah, if you could only join us. But it is good the old bag Braugh needed to pass on her clever healing potions and powders to her daughters. She is not the sort who performs any service on speculation. Your knowledge, however, was a timely exchange, and indeed Cwenburh will have time and place to heal.”

I allowed him to continue with thoughts of a rich future in Worcester. I knew nothing of Braugh’s daughters—in fact, did not know she had daughters. Also, the venerable healing woman had not visited us in the courtyard for over two days—since I had regained my senses. When might she have conveyed such information to the carpenter?

Was there some preordained agreement that extended beyond myself and the business of the clasp?

I did not enjoy being part of a plan determined by others. That night while lying beside Cwenburh, I dropped into slumber ruminating about this. When I woke, I was looking into the half-open eyes of Cwenburh, who reached over and took my hand.

“Oh, Cuthwin, I know by your feel you have caught wise to a plot surrounding you.”

“When people unexpectedly know things I don’t, it is always suspicious, Cwenburh; also, that Mistress Braugh did not show upset when I showed up without money to pay her.”

“It is all my doing, may you and God forgive an annoying wife.”

She explained Braugh had never speculated on the clasp, but through Matilda’s early intervention, learned of my skills at letters. And starting then—and when Cwenburh was a little better, the arrangement was confirmed.

“I know—as does Matilda and her sisters—their way is considered an abomination before God. You’re so filled with the ways of the Monastery because of your love for Abbot Elsin, I know you would never continue with the train.” She moved a bit, and began stroking my arm with her other hand. “I would be too weak anyway, and so it all came into line. Our plot. Does a faithful wife sin if she does so for her husband’s well being?”

I did not enjoy being forecasted by Cwenburh and so accurately. However, her revelation meant there would be no argument over why we might not join the train. She spoke the reason herself.

I was about to speak, when she squeezed my arm; that was not entirely the all of the matter.

“And Cuthwin, there is something else of more Christian urgency: Matilda asked me to take her infant when they leave for Worcester. To raise him as our own, God help and bless us. And I said I would ask you.”

“What! Oh, my sweet Savior! We cannot feed or shelter ourselves!”

In the ever-present quiet of the closing night, we heard low-chiming bells summoning the faithful for Matins.

She looked towards St. Guthlac’s and turned in that direction. “Could we attend prayers, Cuthwin?”

“Can you? Do you have the strength?”

She assured me she did, if I was at her side. The thought of us praying together in a church—something we had never done—overcame all else. My strength had returned entirely, especially with my belly full of bread and broth.

Slowly making our way out, she drew her breath in surprise when I just picked her up gently. “You are so much lighter now, Cwenburh. I could carry you back to Peterborough.”

Being at service and saying the prayers together allowed time for thought and spiritual musings about the arrangement for us both. We realized that God set out great dictates for some, and this was ours. We had little or nothing but each other, and that came so close to ceasing I could not bear to think it.

Furthermore, we had lost our child, and through Matilda had been given another—this in trust by her, who had rendered us so much.

So there was no need to discuss the matter. It was almost the clearest instance of God’s wise balance in the nature of things that either of us ever experienced.

We returned without words, and even being carried had tired her. We lay down together, and she held on to me and fell asleep at once. Having seen us return, good Matilda came in with a cup of broth; seeing Cwenburh asleep, she offered it to me. While I partook, she nursed her boy; but he fell asleep, and she covered the tiny person with meager swaddling and rocked gently side to side with it.

I knew already it had no name except ‘Boy.’ His father was unknown, and his future path would be following Matilda. One evening, she explained how her mother had been sold into this life when she was but in arms. It was not a life that accommodated old age, and her mother died of a terrible ague of the skin.

Still for a woman of Matilda’s great heart, her sacrifice seemed too steep: “How could you bear to give up your own child, Matilda?”

“Because I am a harlot and damned before God, and I do not want the boy to share in that. I followed my mother, and look at the result.”

“You are not damned before God. We are taught that forgiveness is always there for us.”

She continued to rock the child and I knew religious argument was not appropriate—the life she led was so entirely foreign to me, it was hard to visualize its goings-on. I could have asked dozens of questions, but saw only one good path.

“Then stay with us in Hereford, as Cwenburh’s sister, and the boy shall have an aunt. We will become a family, and you will be shut of this life.”

She looked at me—astonished. She tried for words, missed them, and instead began to weep—shook her head, then surprised me more by looking up with a vast smile: “Cuthwin-of-Alnwick, you are a good man, and Cwenburh is a lucky woman. But years ago I was sold along with my mother to old Gertyn, and I am bonded to her. It would take several pounds for my freedom—for I am not yet fifteen, so am highly desired by customers. I bring in much during each festival.”

Two pounds of silver coin was beyond my imaginings, and I stupidly had not anticipated such a bond chained Matilda to this life. Indeed it did, along with most of her sisterhood—to Gertyn, and before her Alfred and Gertyn.

As simple as our properties were, Cwenburh and I had our freedom.

I suffered silent crisis.

If I only had someone with wisdom and learning to advise. Father Abbott had played such a decisive part in the events of my life; if only he could do so now. Certainly it was not possible for Our Savior to hold no mercy or forgiveness for a soul like Matilda. Furthermore, damning her to the fires of eternity was something that every bit of my body and soul knew was not true—could never be true. The Archfiend Himself would recoil from the amount of good present in Matilda’s heart.

She with the boy at her breast fell asleep leaning against the inside spokes of the wheel—one side of our compound. With them both comforted, I called for forgiveness if I were ever to not show compassion for a soul locked into such a path of toil.

I crept out from beneath the wagons and wandered from the inner court outside the row-ditch just when the sun was pushing up lazily from the east. I had much to consider.

Sabbath at Hereford was not observed nearly with the severity that it was in Peterborough, even though the holy seat of His Eminence. Dozens stirred before their pavilions and such—laboring the stiffness from limbs and attending the morning fire. They called to each other gossip of the hour—and on this Sabbath talk of the commonality strayed from the religious. Words of marvel described the great struggle the previous night in the pits outside the walls. Cyrus defeated the bear—indeed at one point, picking it up whole and pinning it to the ground, the poor creature bawling for mercy to the wonder of all the gamesmen.

Abundant coin was lost.

I purposely passed by Ahulf’s pavilion. His great carved coin hung from its post—a morning westerly made it sway as if rocking an infant. I was thankful to find Cyrus sitting at the doorway in the early sun applying salve to a wound on his arm.

He greeted me and swept the ground beside him for me to sit.

“The bruin scratched me good—its claws came through the sheaths. It didn’t mean to, poor dumb brute.”

“Do you fight it often?”

“When the money is right.”

And he went on to talk of his wanderings on fairs and markets, with Ahulf being his agent, as it were, though Cyrus always remained free. He especially looked forward to Bartholomew’s Day at Gloucester which he boasted as being far more lucrative than Worcester.

“In Worcester, the city’s holy men and local Hundred hold pit-fighting to be a great sin and condemn it, so collect a great fine upon each single event. They are especially greedy. All towns and cities normally impose a single fine for the entirety of our shows as they do in Gloucester. A good place, surely, one that also offers lively commerce for Ahulf.”

I never before asked about the details and issues of harlotry—it wasn’t discussed openly, nor did I contemplate details. So with Cyrus I took opportunity to ask how such business was conducted and how it all worked.

Cyrus answered and it was not long in the telling. I became even sadder. I voiced upset that such evil doings were conducted for money on either end of such trade.

Cyrus wrapped the wound—gave his great arm a crank or two to see if it still worked. He drew back a bit, and offered me a long look, and a shake of his massive head.

“So, if Ahulf gives you three pence for a one shilling, four knife, is that more or less honest? Churches are never above dealing in coin and worth as well. Even for such sacraments as burials and marriages, coin is claimed.”

I considered this. For the giant did not offer it in a contentious manner, but more brotherly. Seeing me in quandary, he rose to his great height and asked if I wanted to meet Ursus the Bear.

“He will be fed soon, and it is a happy time for the poor animal.”

It would be the first time I had seen or visited a bestiary. The master was a skinny old Norman who plied the roads with his family members. He had—in addition to Ursus—trained birds of odd color, several badgers who fought all comers, and creatures similar to stoats; and his greatest property, a lioness named Sibyl.

There were also odds and ends of other God’s creatures. Ursus was overjoyed to see Cyrus, and the Norman let him out of his cart, and Cyrus fed him by hand bits of joints and sweet roots and melons from a bucket.

It was a strange sight to see the two combatants so at peace. And no less the lioness dozing in her cart—lions I had seen were ferocious, pictured in a glaring array of colors upon the margins and headings of Scriptorium books.

Her owner was proud of Sibyl and his train.

“Not too many years ago, Master Cuthwin, I had a young dragon, and times were fat for us then, let me tell you. But, it flew off. It was these biting flies. Those damned creatures drive all my beasts mad—they are the devil’s curse.”

For indeed, despite his remote location from the row-ditch, there still swarmed a pestilence of flies and stinging creatures. His sons constructed a defense system of fires on four sides of his bestiary to utilize any one of the winds. In them they burned green resinous woods, obnoxious to bugs, though not much less so to people.

As we walked back towards the walls Cyrus speculated on Ursus’s increasing age, and how the master of bestiary wasn’t always forthcoming with proper feed. It concerned him, of course. He looked sadly back in the direction we had come and unburdened his news: “They will not come to Gloucester, but instead to Worcester. Ahulf could not make the journey sweet enough for the Norman skinflint.”

So that Sabbath was a lesson in parallel matters for me—by not going directly at the problem, Cyrus had with sense accomplished more at the flank of things. Living things, human and beast alike, were bought and sold, both in whole by day and hour. It was the way of things, God’s will or no.

I was filled with excitement after witnessing the bestiary. I regaled Cwenburh and her sisterhood about its exotic sights. She was of sufficient strength to listen as I spun great tales of wonders. After all, where might simple folk such as we see such curiosities as a lioness or bear? It was a wonder to behold and listen to.

Later Cwenburh and I lay beside each other.

She asked what sort of quarters we might find, for she would not have strength enough to travel by St. Bartholomew’s Day.

“My services to put Braugh’s potions into writing, in addition to paying our debt, will hold enough sway to rent shelter for three souls.”

And we both fell asleep, held in the arms of Our Savior, blessed with the trust and optimism of youth, an endless commodity.

So it was in the second year of King Harold Harefoot’s reign²⁶ that we settled for a recuperative time in Hereford. And it was here our nephew, who came to be christened Eadrig-of-Hereford, joined our family and subsequently brought us endless joy.

Within a few months fortunate events followed close—one against the other, as cattle following each other into paddock. Cwenburh recovered and was able to maintain, then increase, a flow of milk for Eadrig, who took nourishment as eagerly as a young colt.

My business became brisk. Braugh’s two daughters arrived from Shrewsbury. The mother had ambitious plans in her old age: She desired to take up year-round shop in Hereford. She would then have her daughters split two traveling pavilions from her one, the elder going one way and the younger the other.

I found it remarkable that the daughters were far worse for wear than their mother, for both were quite decrepit though just touching their middle years. One had no teeth, the other’s leg was shorter than its opposite; and the elder daughter also lacked her front teeth, and a part of one ear. Her younger sibling wore a colorful cloth of patchwork over one eye having had it gouged out in one sort of struggle or another.

But they seemed content with their lot—and, like it or not, I observed and heard much about both: My unstoppable source was the African girl, a terrible gossip who spoke a most awful Saxon. She said the daughters’ infirmities resulted from ignoring their mother’s warning: “Both as young girls, Master Cuthwin, put their quim and mouth to devil’s horn beyond what was good for them. Now look at them.”

Yet they learned the cleverness of healing craft from their mother then added to this their own experiences. Whatever fair or market they attended, their skills were in demand. Also important to their plans was each could read enough figures and letters to make out written directions for potions, salves, and the like. This made their mother’s knowledge, in form of writing, portable.

My services then were of immediate value and I understood why Braugh was quick to make the trade with us for healing and attending Cwenburh.

While mother and daughters bartered and transacted diverse things to get their trains together, I wrote my fingers to nubbins. I sat long hours with a board upon my lap writing upon quartos of the poorest quality vellum, but I soon gave this up, instead working faster onto wet clay.

Braugh was not generous in buying good supplies, and soon after Lammastide the moveable shops dealing such materials ventured to other towns for various fairs and markets. Taking the thin clay trays home, I would transfer this deluge of ingredients for potions, elixirs, and salves onto bits and pieces of cheap vellum afforded me by the parsimonious old woman. Contrary to her statement there was nothing wrong at all with her memory or wit.

She relied on me to construct all into a book or folio. And, of course, two copies had to be made—one for each daughter.

It was with only endless coaxing that I was able to talk her out of the price for tapirs, and then only the cheapest sorts that spit and sputtered, and sent out rank-smelling smoke.

“I tell you, Cuthwin, I fear for our nephew’s health with those awful things,” Cwenburh warned me.

It was only after great argument with her mother that the elder daughter, Edith (of Sussex) convinced her to give us coin for a tiny alcove next to a butcher’s house on the banks of the Wye.

Within less than a week, though still slight of flesh, Cwenburh fixed up what was essentially a mud-floor storage hut into decent quarters with fresh water only a stone’s toss distant. This was a great boon.

The place became littered with clay tablets and their frames, and I sat amidst it all transcribing onto vellum. The butcher gave me advice on where to provide myself with better vellum. Soon—because of the eternal kindness of God—independent jobs began to come to me. I worked on these during off-hours work unknown to Braugh. I was then able to procure my own writing supplies.

It seemed that more than one or two odd guards here and there wanted letters written to their people miles distant. And the word of this spread so fast that soon both forms of work overwhelmed. Cwenburh gossiped and enjoyed company, and in truth I did, too—at least the hearing of it, God forgive.

Two journeymen butchers, both kin to the butcher himself, would often take repast with us at Vespers.

“Cuthwin, you should charge these cottars more than a ha’pence for writing them such priceless letters.”

“Yes, it is God’s great gift—a miracle. With your help, Cuthwin, these ragbags are able to convey plain word of home and people across leagues and time.”

What I did for poor people was short and plain words, and took little time. But indeed, I was doing two or three such a day, and we were accumulating resources for our future—most of all, to buy livery tools to again ply my trade.

One Sabbath I found Braugh looming in my doorway, angry. It was her way to remain outwardly composed when angry, yet her words became even harsher. Her eyes were set like those of the hawk as she glared down.

“So, Cuthwin, you do me false, after I saved you from serfdom and your wife from eternal darkness.”

This was ridiculous—I denied it at once, but she went on and—as I had guessed at once—my off-hours’ labor had become known to her. She wanted a share, and we were right in the middle of this difficulty when Cwenburh returned from showing off Eadwig to the butcher’s eldest daughter.

And the worst began—for immediately the two engaged like hungry sparrow hawks over fat crickets, and since Braugh loomed over the diminutive Cwenburh, the two were chin-to-chest argufying.

Within moments, Braugh discharged me from service. Further, Braugh promised to appeal to the wardens or even the Hundred for compensation for my faithless breach. There was a closing volley of hostile words with promises of foul deeds before the old harridan turned and departed. This display of shouted invective brought others around to join in the fray. All became a general confusion.

Such a fray was Cwenburh’s home terrain.

There were great embers in her eyes as she stalked back and forth, bouncing Eadrig on her hip.

“She will be back, the greedy old squint. Where else could she get someone to do what you are doing, unless it be a cleric or some such who won’t work so cheaply.”

She set herself on the floor after placing Eadrig in the leather-lined cradle. I was not, as is my way, too upset about the goings-on; I was a free man, and had nothing written agreeing to any long-term labor with Braugh.

“See here, Cuthwin.” From her bodice she removed a leather wallet with the clasp, then three shilling pieces and six pence. This caused me to draw breath.

“So much! God be praised, Cwenburh!”

She was a born saver of resources, and was the best reeve or factor anyone would want. Cwenburh pointed out that she had calculated my labors so far and I had paid back Braugh many times over, and it was she who owed me coin.

“At least two schillings worth, if not more. Working folk around here know the old bag is cheating you. And she just demonstrated to everyone that she is but a dried-up old cunt.”

“Ah, Cwenburh, you have a tongue on you like a serpent, God help us.”

But good or bad words aside, it is this day that became the starting point—the first milepost—for a long road that extended over thirty years. That same Sabbath I had definitely thought my career as liveryman was ending—or, had ended.

There was God’s design here. Who else cares for common folk?

In those days poor people had no scribes about; only great men or landed sorts with money could hire a cleric or perhaps reeve to do such.

I enjoyed writing—listening to words, then putting them down to be passed along. And the more flourishes and other written craft requested by clients, the more I loved it.

Making the various inks was good, artful craft I took special pride in producing. Further, objects upon which one could write were more varied than thought by most—a clever contrivance could turn the most simple items into workable writing surfaces.

In the Scriptorium at Peterborough, Brother Cassartorius and Brother Ithamar had many ideas about all the implements of writing—especially Brother Cassartorius, who brought with him the wily crafts of Italy and Lombard.

For seven years I paid great attention to all those tricks of craft that came to my notice.

So I saw God’s great hand directing how my craft might offer poor and ordinary folk betterment. Cwenburh’s skills were a priceless addition to our family endeavor. She saw how best I could apply this use and the when and where of it.

In a definite way, Father Abbot’s sure, God-ordained will had led me along a crooked, difficult path to this useful point and I knew he would approve of it. I had found my rightful place before God. And true enough we began travels and encountered experiences and folk that enriched our lives as eggs might a rich cake.