A few men had seen our capture, but made no move either to help or to hinder. I saw one grey-beard lean his head to another and say, ‘I told you they’d come. The boy saint and his aged parent,’ his eyes fixed on my face bright and excited.
The speed of events kept me from feeling fear. Rather I was curious about the creature we were being taken to. I had clearly caught the word ‘witch’, alarming certainly, but I could imagine no reason why we might be cursed or enchanted by the woman, and if we were indeed the manifestation of a prophecy, it seemed more probable that we would be elevated and celebrated in some way.
We were expected. Between two twisted ancient oaks, tucked beneath a jutting ledge of stone, decorated with skins and skulls, herbs and charms, was the cave. Standing tall, wearing a bright purple gown, her hair long and snowy white, despite a face that struck me as young and unlined, was the witch. I realised then that I had expected to meet at last the woman whose face I had seen in the hermit’s pool. Confusion and disappointment washed over me as I stared at this stranger, my eyes screwed up to see her better.
‘Bring the holy one here,’ she invited. ‘There is much to be done.’ She inspected Cuthman sharply, waving at the women to release him and let him stand clear for her to see. ‘You have travelled far and long,’ she remarked, with something close to admiration in her tone. ‘Some of us had begun to despair.’ I was assisted from the cart, relieved to be treated with no obvious disrespect.
‘What do you want with us?’ I asked, trying to stand straight beside my son. Hal held onto my hand, his eyes wide, hopping a little in his agitation. I tugged at him in a signal to keep still, but he paid me no heed.
The witch woman smiled at me unpleasantly. ‘Nothing of you, hag,’ she said, and brushed her hand across her mouth as if I disgusted her. My short-lived optimism shrivelled under her gaze. ‘It is your lad we looked for,’ she went on. ‘Strange that you have two of them. Only one was prophesied.’ The contrast between her attitude and that of the crowd worried me. I shrank away from her and made no attempt to explain about Hal. If Cuthman were to be taken from me once again, I would perhaps be glad of the younger boy as a replacement. He would not be able to push my barrow, but he would at least be company. He snuggled against me when the woman spoke, and I wrapped an arm around him, pleased to be his protector.
Cuthman kept a distance from me, his blank eyes directed at the sky where it could be glimpsed above the trees. I supposed that he too had caught the words ‘the young saint’ and was acting up to the role to the best of his ability. Or perhaps he was praying for strength to resist a new collection of women, as he had done before at Maiden Castle.
‘Now then,’ the witch went on in the same harsh voice. ‘At nightfall, there is work for us all.’ Our captors gathered round, and amidst some argument and noise, we came to understand that we had arrived in the town on May Eve. There was a strange practice in these parts, it seemed, of stealing a May pole from the neighbouring settlement. A group of young men, led by a specially chosen hero, must take a team of oxen in the silence of midnight and carry off the great trophy, to erect in their own town square for the May Day dancing and games. I remembered the Beltane festival we had continued to enjoy in our village, despite the protestations from the priest, and assumed that this would be something of the same, though with some outlandish augmentation concerning the precious Pole.
‘Why do you not already have your own pole?’ I asked, rather boldly. As with any unfamiliar practice, my first instinct was to make little of it, and find fault. In our village, we had never felt any need to steal, or to fuss with some great unstable tree. Our fires and dances had been more than enough to greet the coming summer.
‘It was destroyed,’ came the curt reply, and I felt a small complacency at this disorganised way of proceeding. The people here were foreign, strange and therefore inferior. Despite the crowds and the simmering nastiness of the witch, I assured myself that my son would know how to conduct himself without coming to any harm.
It was strange to see Cuthman throw himself with enthusiasm into the planning of the theft. At first I presumed that he was plotting an escape, and wanted the townspeople to relax their vigilance, but as I watched and listened to him, it seemed that he was more light-hearted about his new position than I had seen him for many months. Stealing, surely, was contrary to his Saviour’s doctrine. The ritual of the Maypole was unfamiliar and curious to him, and perhaps he felt safer for knowing that the night-time escapade was to be carried out by a group of boys and men. He had never had cause to fear other men, and their company might be a fillip for him.
But I could not forget that the proceedings were being directed by a woman revered for mysterious magical powers, who had foreseen Cuthman’s arrival, and surely had her own reasons for summoning him to her as she did.
The night came on, cold and bright. I was given a sheepskin and food and told to get some sleep in a shelter close to the witch’s cave. Hal had begged to be included in the raiding party, and for a moment he and I both believed he would be refused. But then the witch smiled frostily down at him, patted his small white cheek and said, ‘Go then, little one. You may prove useful as messenger, at least.’
Separation from Hal as well as Cuthman made me considerably more uneasy. I felt worse than I had when the pagan women had Cuthman at the fortress. I was in a stranger land than ever now, impossibly far from my own home and with no notion of my own destiny. I could not see anything for myself, away from my son. The witch ignored me and I feared I would have no alms from her if Cuthman failed or disappeared.
I dozed, shivering from being alone on a cold night. Then there were shouting voices, calling from a distance, alarmed and angry. I waited, fuzzy-headed and apprehensive. Then, weaving a crooked zigzag path between the shadows, came the light head of young Hal, shrieking like a small animal running in fear for its life. I called to him, and he veered again, straight for me, crashing into me and burrowing his head into my middle.
‘Tell me,’ I whispered to him, ignoring all the other people who were running about, collecting in knots to shout orders and plans at each other, and then dashing off in all directions. Oddly, not one of them appeared to have noticed Hal’s urgency and distress.
‘They surprised us,’ panted Hal. ‘Great tall men with clubs and sharp sticks. There was a fight, and then we ran away. I should tell the witch.’
‘Cuthman?’ I knew already that my son had not run away. He had been chosen as leader. Whatever it was in his lonely moorland upbringing that made him value such an appointment, only God knew. But it had been important to him, from the first moment.
‘They captured him.’ Hal struggled upright, staring into my face. ‘I must tell the witch. I am her messenger.’
‘She is not here,’ I told him calmly. ‘She has gone after them. She will discover for herself.’ I was not being truthful; I needed the lad to stay close and warm with me.
‘But Cuthman is captured,’ Hal repeated.
I almost laughed. Captured twice in one day! What a fate was ours, in this wild world of strange men and their religious passions; half-mad women and their absurd sense of power. All I wanted at that moment, was my old hut, my dear Edd with his red cheeks and slow smile, and enough bread on the table. It was cruel of Cuthman’s God to force us to play such games as this. But I knew better than to resist by this time. Hugging Hal to me, and soothing his fears as best I could, I lay down and pulled the sheepskin over us. My shawl, torn and dirty, was wrapped round my feet, against the night chill.
‘It’ll be all right in the morning,’ I told him. ‘You see.’
Other things happened during that night, but I was too weary and battered to care what they were. At first light the witch-woman came to me, crouching low, so that her face with its white hair filled my vision when I opened my eyes. She scowled at me and said, ‘Stir yourself, Mother. This is a big day for your son. He will wish you to stand witness to it.’ She glared at Hal. ‘Fine messenger you made,’ she sneered.
‘He is too young for your work,’ I defended. ‘And you know all, I suppose, with your second sight.’
She smiled thinly. ‘I know your son has allowed himself to be taken.’
‘And will be well able to resist doing your bidding.’
‘Never fear,’ the woman laughed. I could see she was excited, jumpy with her own importance. ‘Nothing has gone awry with my plans.’
It was too much for me to comprehend. Hal had crawled away from me and was pissing against a bush, not so far distant as I might have wished. Other women were fuelling cooking fires and carrying water. With a sigh, I got to my feet, brushing at the dust and dirt which was clinging to my skirts. Although some bits fell to the ground, I was still a wretched figure, dirty and stiff. My back always stabbed me in the morning, my legs slow to take my weight and even slower to propel me forward. I seemed old and useless to myself, and almost beyond caring what befell me or my son from henceforth.
But there is a specialness to the first day of May which never fails to bring good cheer. Earlier Beltanes came to my mind, most vividly the one that we had celebrated especially for Wynn. It was a time to be hopeful and happy. The sky was bright, smiling blue through the pale green of the new leaves. A cuckoo sang not far away, his voice piercing through the chorus of blackbirds, thrushes, pigeons and finches. A fresh scent of a land greeting the summer, proud of having come through another winter, glad to be warm again and fertile. There would be many a new babe begun this day, in the reckless festival which was the age old mark of May Day. Cuthman himself, I believed, had been conceived at Beltane, and born nine months later at Imbolc. Such was the common pattern, and Edd and I had not been such rebels as to abjure the general practice.
The morning was filled with the laughter of women. A bowl of thick porridge was handed to me, decorated with some pink apple blossom that seemed to me a sign of the excesses to come. Everywhere there were young green shoots, adorning the hair and clothes of the women, strewn on the ground, woven into the harness of a donkey tied to a stake close by. Never in my home village had the May festival been celebrated like this.
But I did not complain when the witch woman brought me a fine new skirt to wear. In undignified haste I pulled off my old one, casting it carelessly aside, and wrapping its replacement snugly around myself. It was made of a light woollen weave, decorated with embroidered flowers and butterflies, fastened with a neat metal hook, the like of which I had never yet seen. My topshirt and shawl seemed all the more disreputable in contrast, and the witch quickly fetched me replacements for them, too. I was made new again by the creamy colour and the sense of freshness that the new clothes brought me.
‘I must wash myself,’ I announced, feeling my skin rough with the long months of skimped cleaning it had known. And my hair was gritty from going so long unwashed. Summer was here, with a warm day perfect for a complete wash. I began to remove the clothes again, wanting my body to be worthy of them before they could be worn proudly.
The witch nodded a little more agreeably, and led me to a specially-built bath house. ‘Just like the Romans,’ she boasted. ‘We have our share of civilised ways, for all the priests might call us savages.’ I remembered the ruins I had seen with the decorated floors and complicated brick constructions. This hut was not in any way similar. But it contained a shallow iron tub, with a ledge above holding soap and a linen sheet for rubbing dry. There was also a large bowl for tipping water onto dirty hair. ‘Your little lad can bring you water,’ said the witch.
Hal was not impressed with the task, even though I helped him. The river was some distance away, and the buckets we used were heavy even before they had water in them. What advantages there may have been to a bath house were lost on me when I compared it to the ease and speed of simply washing in the river itself. True, the water warmed a little from sitting in the tub with the sun beating onto the roof of the hut. The bottom of the tub was smoother than the riverbed, and there were no weeds or mud in it. A channel led away from it, for the dirty water when I was finished. But the initial sense of luxury faded as I sat rubbing fatty soap all over my body and slopped water onto myself. The result was admittedly a feeling of freshness, and my hair certainly benefitted from its washing, but I could not see that I had been so very dirty before. The skin has its own ways of keeping clean.
When I suggested to Hal that he make use of the water in the tub for his own cleaning purposes, he grimaced horribly and skipped hastily out of my reach. I did not insist. There were times when I was content to acknowledge that I was not in reality his mother. I would do my best to protect him from harm, but more than that was not required of me.
The sun reached its highest point in the sky, and the atmosphere changed. The women began to gather themselves together, preparing to set off to another place. As I had always known it, Beltane celebrations began in the afternoon, with dances and games, to develop into a feast as the sun sank, with the lighting of great fires and increasingly wild behaviour lasting far into the night. I assumed that these people conducted themselves in much the same manner.
I was becoming impatient to know what had become of my son and the Pole he had gone to steal. Hal’s initial panic seemed to have gone entirely, and he expressed no fears for Cuthman’s wellbeing. Had the men of the settlement convinced him that it was all harmless fun? Had Cuthman himself been light and larky about it? If it had not been for the Maiden Castle episode, and the look in the witch woman’s eye the day before, I might have felt as relaxed as Hal seemed to be.
But a suspicion had crept into my mind that there had been a different intention from the one we had been told. The excited reception we had been given seemed to suggest something more, when I paused to think about it. Cuthman’s arrival had fulfilled some kind of prophecy - would their seers bother to predict something so usual as the ritualised raiding of a neighbouring community for its Maypole? And Hal had seen something menacing during the night’s raid, which had alarmed him enough to send him running back to me. I began to wonder whether I had cause to be very much more alarmed than I had been thus far.
My new clothes gave me a sense of status which at first was very pleasing. Then slowly my suspicions turned to this matter, too. The garments were finely made and had to hold some value. Why had I been given them so freely? Was Cuthman so important to them that his mother too must be honoured and well dressed? I looked around for the white-haired witch. There were many pressing questions I wished to ask her.
But she was nowhere to be seen. I called to a woman nearby, asking what was happening, but she just smiled at me and continued with her work. She was carefully rolling up a pack containing several small stones and other things. I wondered whether they were runes, the markings invisible to my poor sight. I struggled stiffly towards a cluster of women, who were also tying up bundles and checking each other’s hair and clothes, tweaking stray folds and locks into place. They laughed with a wildness that I remembered from my girlhood. Many a virginity was ended with the Beltane frolics.
‘Please tell me,’ I panted. ‘Tell me what is to take place, and where my son might be. I am beginning to worry about him.’
Two of them turned to face me. Young, with rich brown hair and blue eyes, they seemed plump and healthy and uncaring. Their faces were alight with excited anticipation, and they could hardly restrain their giggles. ‘Your son?’ said one, her voice high with some strange thrill. ‘The Jack, you mean?’
The others instantly hushed her, pinching her fiercely until she squealed. It merely puzzled me, and I stood there, foolish and ignorant. The high-voiced girl seemed to take pity.
‘Your son is safe,’ she told me. ‘We are leaving shortly, and you can come with us to see it all. Can you walk far, or should we use your cart?’
I had forgotten my cart for the moment. It stood abandoned beside the witch’s cave, and I remembered how uncomfortable I had found it on that last walk. But my legs were stiff and slow. Again I felt old and weary, the world moving too quick for me, like a fast-flowing stream, carrying something precious away from me, too rapidly for me to follow. But then Hal was beside me, nudging his bony shoulder under my elbow.
‘Lean on me,’ he chirped. ‘You can walk, then.’
I smiled gratefully at him. ‘I will, then,’ I told him. ‘But first there is something I must do.’ I hobbled over to the cart and rummaged in the small heap of my things. The bag of runes was as I had left it, and I dipped my hand in, saying to myself Show me how I should conduct myself this day. Opening my clasped fist, I was hardly surprised to find the rune for Hail sitting there. It seemed a most obvious message. A chill disruption to our plans. Ever since we had left our home, disruption had surely been the watchword for our lives. Every day was a disruption, a dislocation. But I knew better than to dismiss it so easily. Today, there would be a further upheaval. And I remembered my question - involving my own behaviour. I was being advised to behave disruptively, called upon to interrupt proceedings, perhaps. A feeling of foreboding began to grow within me and I looked around for my loyal friend Hal.
‘Come then, lad,’ I beckoned. ‘I am ready for whatever may be about to happen.’
We walked back towards the seashore, and I annoyed my companions by stopping every few steps, despite having Hal’s brave shoulder to rest on. Partly the walking wearied me, and partly I was in awe of the size of the place. I had never seen so many buildings together before, and it made me breathless to imagine how it would be to live there. The proud fort rose high over the huts and fields and storage barns.
We soon reached a large field set on a south-facing slope. A green ash tree, recently felled, but with many of its branches left intact, stood erect in the centre of the field. Woven into it were all kinds of blossom and early summer flowers, creating a mass of colour. It had been set in a small pit, with supporting timbers encircling it, so that it was stable. At its summit, there was an odd arrangement of protruding branches, lashed into place, like nothing I had ever seen.
A ring of small unlit bonfires surrounded the Pole, tokens only, made from scraps of dry bark and slender boughs too small for use as fuel, stored through the winter, by the looks of them. Knots of people stood together, watching a wooded stretch to the east, but with a suggestion that it was yet too soon for anything significant to happen. I saw a group of monks in earnest conversation in the south-west corner of the field, and thought they seemed angry.
‘Is such a festival allowed by the priests?’ I asked. ‘Is it not ungodly?’
‘Hush,’ one of the women snapped at me. ‘You know nothing.’
This seemed unjust, when I had merely been asking for information. I had not noticed any clerics the day before, nor seen a church close by. The witch woman in the woods had authority beyond any doubt. I gave it up. Whether church or witch prevail, there was little that I could do but keep my wits sharp, and my loyalties unstated.
Hal remained by my side for a while, and then began to look around impatiently. ‘I wish I could find some company,’ he mumbled, half to himself.
‘Go, child,’ I encouraged. ‘You are not needed here.’
He looked at me, uncertain about such a rejection. Then he nodded and ran off, dodging around the clusters of people, until he reached some boys somewhat younger than himself. They faced him suspiciously, but he dug in his pocket and produced some oak galls and began tossing them in the air, deftly catching them in turn and throwing them up again. It was a trick he had practised with us in the forest, and by this time had a magic all of its own. It was as if the little balls stuck to his fingers. He could keep five or six in the air at once, moving them so fast, the eye became confused.
It seemed to have the hoped-for effect on his new playmates, for they began smiling and chaffing him and together they all moved away, and I saw no more of him.
A savoury smell came to my nose, and I spied a large griddle with meat cooking on it, a corpulent woman tossing on more pieces, and turning them about with a sharp stick. Dogs were collecting in front of her, ears pricked in anticipation and tails slowly wagging. She waved the stick at them and shouted, but they retreated scarcely at all.
Rapidly, then, people filled the field, four or five score of them, their children and ancients too. Most were clothed in something green, and the womenfolk had flowers in their hair. At some signal that I missed, a drummer began a slow beat, and pipers began to play. ‘Noontide has come!’ I heard someone shout. In sudden unison, the people all began to clap their hands in rhythm with the drum, and a procession formed, four abreast. I was gathered into it, before I knew what was afoot, and the whole crowd marched around the field, clapping and whistling.
The marching changed course, until we all stood in a tight circle around the Pole and the little bonfires, waiting. A silence fell, and I felt my heart racing from the exertions of the march and the tension of the moment. On either side of me, strange women had their arms linked through mine, holding me firm. For the first time in an hour or more, I remembered my son. My heart jumped then, swelling to obstruct my breathing. Almost I could guess what was planned for him, in the foreboding of that waiting. I had concluded that the ‘capture’ witnessed by Hal was in reality part of the plan that these people had arranged for him. The story of the raiding party for the theft of the Pole had not been the whole truth. Cuthman had walked into a trap, and had now been given a new and central role in this ritual.
Events followed in a rush. The crowd began to chant and sway. A group of players leapt over our heads into the ring around the Pole, and enacted a strange drama I failed to comprehend. They fought and shrieked, pointed up at the sun and down at the underworld. Baskets of flowers which had been set down beside the Pole were swung around, and their contents strewn over the ground. Dandelions and daisies, may blossom and bright golden buttercups lay gaudy on the new grass.
Then from the wooded eastern edge of the field, there came a new drumming, and the crowd began to clap again. Nobody turned to look, but kept their eyes firmly on the May Pole. At last a gap melted in the circle, large enough to allow a strange woven thing to come through, the largest basket ever seen, or a rat trap made from a thousand withies or osiers, with leaves and flowers wound all about it, ivy stems and bryony. It was as round as the full moon, rolling along the ground like a huge puffball. For a time, I could make nothing of it, seeing it obscurely through the moving people all around me. It was heavy, pushed along by four men, rolling crookedly. They steered it to the foot of the Pole, and stood back, arms raised.
‘The Jack!’ came a cry from the crowd. ‘The Jack in the Green!’
And I knew in that moment where my Cuthman had gone to, and what they had done with him. Urgently I scanned the faces close by me, hoping for some cheery comfort. Never you worry, Mother, I wanted someone to say. It be no more than an afternoon’s play. But there seemed little sign of good cheer. The voices were raised in a roar that rang in my ears like blood lust. They welcomed their captive Jack, true enough, but with a dark reason behind their acclaim. I stared at the wicker ball, and the tall Pole beside it. I saw that one man had a rope around his body, and that he was looking upwards, as if preparing for some special feat.
Deftly the men threaded the stout rope in and out of Cuthman’s cage, and then tossed one end over the projecting boughs at the head of the Pole. The construction was stout, both of Pole and cage. It held with no more than some creaks and sighs as my son was hoisted to a height of three grown men one above the other. The rope was hooked around a post, driven deep into the ground, and the grotesquely strange sight of a flower-decked scaffold was before my eyes.
The close weaving of the wicker prevented me from seeing Cuthman, and no sound came from him. The container was small enough to be uncomfortable, and I imagined him curled up, knees to chest, perhaps afraid that the thing would break and drop him to the ground. I had never heard of such behaviour as this before, and could only make wild guesses as to what might happen next. The Beltane night had been a wild thing in my girlhood, though less so than in my mother’s time. The church had given us Easter and Whitsuntide for the spring celebrations, and could see no place for the Maying. This Jack business was new to me, but the presence of the witch woman assured me that there was nothing Christian in it, and probably nothing too benign either. The clapping reached its climax and then ceased, as if a phase of the ceremony was already over, and something lighter might now follow.
I found myself admitting a sneaking humour in the sight before me. A man resembling a giant fruit, representing perhaps the hopes for the summer to come, was strange and almost comic. People were laughing around me, raising their arms to the sky, and repeating ‘The Jack is come!’ and similar assertions. I listened for clues, but could still not guess what might come next. As the tight circle loosened, the women on either side of me moved away, leaving me alone. My back had grown sore with standing, and so I lowered myself to the ground, and sat there, only slightly more comfortably, feeling alien and ignorant in this place. It was my duty to remain close by my son, but there was nothing else I could do or think of doing.
The man-made tree was impressive in its colour and majesty. Small children were coming forward from the encircling crowd and joining hands to dance around the Pole. I noted that they were all girls, and that few boys under the age of maturity were to be seen. Hal and his new friends had not reappeared, and I supposed that this festival of rising sap and new life was not of much interest to them. Worry for Cuthman’s wellbeing forced any mild concern for Hal far into the corners of my mind.
Individuals were detaching themselves from the crowd and performing acrobatics between the bonfires. There was a growing merriment, fuelled by women passing amongst us with trays of cooked meat and new baked bread. The afternoon waned, small clouds across the bright blue sky gathered and took on a pink hue with the lowering of the sun. There was an odd mix of expectation and complacency. Everyone seemed to know what he or she should do, but I could discern no real pattern to it all.
Some signal must have been made, which I did not see, and the crowd began to cluster again. I was shuffled forward to the front of the circle, and then sat there, my legs curled beneath me. I felt feet nudging at my backside, and jostling children fell against me now and then, but I remained as I was, passively apprehensive. The witch from the woods appeared, her hair elaborately decorated with garlands of white and yellow flowers, a cape covered with young green leaves, beech and oak and sycamore, over her shoulders. She stood directly beneath Cuthman’s cage, and began to speak. Her voice carried easily in the silence of the listening crowd.
‘People, we are here to greet the new season, with a gift to the Goddess of the woodlands and the fields. We give her the stranger, the boy with the madness of penitence upon him. The young Christian who has wheeled his sick parent through forest and over mountains to reach us here, as my own Sight foretold.’ Some people glanced at me, to show that they took her meaning, but there was nothing of interest or compassion in their eyes. I had sunk in significance as the day had progressed, and felt afraid that when this was all over, I would be left like a broken toy alone in this great field.
The witch continued her oration. ‘We honour our great Mother this night, for her faithfulness to us, her servants. She has restored the sunlight to us, the life of our beasts and the essence which we shall use to multiply ourselves - ‘ Here she broke off and swept her gaze over the crowd, a wide grin on her face. She raised her fist, her arm kinked in the sign that men make to show lust, drawing a great laugh from the people. She danced a little, skipping nimbly in a figured pattern around and between the unlit firestacks, holding her skirts aloft, showing bare brown legs. The people whistled, and a young man jumped into the circle to join her, catching her from behind and cupping both hands over her breasts. She flung back her head, to touch cheeks with him, still dancing. He thrust his loins at her, the drums suddenly joining in again, with the same rhythm. Old and stiff as I was, a throb began in my own groin and a tingle in my nipples, as their playacting intensified.
But the witch broke away, an arm extended to prevent the man from following. Then she pointed at the top of the Pole. ‘But first!’ she cried, her voice swelling with power, ‘first, we must pay our dues.’ Her arm swept to the far western edge of the field. ‘The sun goes down within the hour. Be sure that all is ready! ‘
Shouts came from all quarters, to assure her that readiness was certain. A hopelessness descended upon me. It was a long day of madness, amongst strangers who did everything differently from anything I had ever known. I was friendless, ignored, even shunned, and Cuthman’s fate was far beyond my power to control. How stiff and sick he too must be by this time, suspended there, both in full view and invisible. The torture was a cunning one, and the fear which I had been denying as needless all day gripped me then, breaking down my defences.
With a struggle, my skirts hampering me and my back stabbing so I fell forward onto my hands for a moment, I got to my feet and took a few steps forward. I tried to call out, through the noise and jostling, so that my son would hear me. But my voice came thin and feeble, like a crone of twice my age. No-one bothered with me, so I staggered forward, until I was in the circle, where only a few danced and chanted. ‘Son!’ I called again, pitching my voice to carry, the breath taken deep, my throat extended. ‘Can you hear me, my son?’
The people close by me fell quiet then, from surprise. I called again, more confident, and angry that I had left it so late. And this time there was a reply, muffled, but discernible.
‘Mother,’ came Cuthman’s voice. ‘They will burn me at sunset. It is the way here. I am to be their sacrifice to the Goddess. These heathen dogs intend murder, Mother.’ The words rose as his anger became more intense. Again I remembered the women of Maiden Castle, and my son’s outrage at their temerity. He had been victorious then. I had hopes for him, even now.
‘Nay, son,’ I called, unable to put much reassurance into my tone at such volume.
‘We must trust to the Lord,’ he shouted back, sounding foolish even to my ears. ‘Stay by me, Mother. You may be needed. Please pray for me, now.’
A mocking laugh rang out at that from those who heard his words, though nobody bothered to reply to him or pass comment on what he had told me. Was it true that they would burn him? I stood there, trying to straighten my back, and stared at the faces around me. They were fair-skinned Saxon folk, in the main, broad in the shoulder and short in the neck. Couples linked arms, or held hands, excited and impatient after the lewd witch dance. Children somersaulted and chased, squealing and happy. The mingled sense of normal life and tense anticipation bewildered me. It seemed impossible that murder should be done, in cold blood, as a sacrifice to a Goddess, however powerful she might be. The field was wide open, full of commonly decent men and women, only a few of whom were drunk on ale or mead. There was no secrecy or mystery in their festival. No, I assured myself, there might be pranks and mischief, but most certainly no murder.
But with the setting of the sun, the mood changed. The cooked meats were passed round again, this time with brimming jugs of ale, and strange cakes which when I tasted one reminded me of the herbs my mother used for headaches. My isolation was deliberately compounded when three women took hold of me, and propelled me to a point well away from the Pole and Cuthman. Then, at a yodelling cry from the witch, four men with firebrands ran to the circle and set light to all the little bonfires, sending up smoke and flames. Rapidly, a line of girls formed, and one by one they ran and leaped over each fire, screaming as they did so, their clothes now and then catching in the flames, so the sense of danger was real. Lads clapped encouragement, and as each maid finished her ordeal, a boy would run to her, seize her hand and set off at a dash into the woodland beyond. This, I realised, was closer to the Beltane Eve that I remembered. But even when the youngfolk had all gone a good-sized crowd remained.
‘Now to the Jack!’ cried the witch, still in control of events. Strong men untied the retaining rope, and lowered Cuthman in his cage into waiting arms. Then they set it a little way from the Pole, and, using pitchforks, tossed burning bundles from the bonfires up against it, a team of them bringing great quantities of fresh fuel for the flames, which they piled skilfully for the best conflagration.
I screamed then, more afraid than I had ever been in my life. The osiers began to catch, and smoke to rise. I imagined my boy cooking inside his cage, or stifling to death on the smoke. I dashed forward, faster than I thought possible, kicking and scratching at the people all around, but they almost casually restrained me, holding me back, a gleam of bloodlust in their eyes, teeth set with the solemnity of their ritual. This was something important to them, which they felt compelled to do, and the fact that Cuthman and I were unknown strangers made it possible for them to carry out their intentions. Indeed, even I could see that there had been an inevitability to it all along, from the moment Cuthman arrived, pushing me in my cart. That had made it easy for the people. Their witch had told them we would arrive on the appointed day, and when we did, the rest was ordained.
But this was not Cuthman’s plan. He had not walked for months, almost starving, forcing himself onward, enduring ordeals and humiliations for this. Holding myself in check, hating and fearing the murderers who had rejected all the gentle teachings of Christ, I turned my thoughts to the Good Lord above, who I knew was the whole object of my son’s attention in those fiery moments.
The end came with considerable drama. A high boy’s voice called, ‘Quickly! There! Oh, hurry, or he’ll burn.’
‘Hal!’ My voice was a croak of hope and disbelief.
Like a small warrior coming to the rescue of his King, the child ran forward. Behind him followed a large group of monks, robes flapping and horror on their faces. The witch flew out to meet them, barring their progress with outstretched arms. She was a daunting sight, her eyes flashing and the frenzy of the ritual upon her.
‘We forbid this,’ cried the foremost monk. ‘You know full well that killing shall not be tolerated. If this continues, you will all be arraigned for murder.’
‘All of us?’ she scoffed, flinging her arms to indicate the crowd. ‘I think not.’
‘We know the ringleaders,’ the monk persisted. ‘Now, release that man.’ All heads turned to Cuthman then, where his basket was surrounded by fire, licking upwards, and no doubt growing unbearable inside. No sound came from him. Some of the monks began to trot towards it, somewhat tentatively, clearly wondering how to effect the rescue without damage to themselves.
‘It is the will of the whole settlement that this sacrifice be properly conducted,’ announced the witch, her voice calm and cold. ‘There is no place for your God and his soft ways here. We are beyond your laws, and will always be.’
‘Woman, you are in serious error,’ the monk maintained. ‘The law of this land forbids such heathen practice, and well you know it. Numbers cannot save you. This is murder, a crime against God and man alike.’
‘Enough debating,’ I cried, then. ‘Save my son. Oh, heaven and earth, Oh, sweet Jesus, save him.’
And heaven and earth between them heard my words. While I waited in vain for Hal or the monks to brave the flames, or for the witch to be persuaded of her crime, a greater force took charge. From the clear sky, where the rising moon hovered and a few early stars shone forth, there came a drenching rain, a waterfall, a cascade, which quenched the flames in moments. The hissing protests from fire and heathen alike were almost comical to hear. The effortless rescue, performed by Cuthman’s ever-watchful God, was too astonishing for utterance. People stared into each other’s faces, mouths open, arms limp by their sides, their hair soaked and clothes dripping. The May flowers drooped and the proud Pole was just a tree, doomed to die and become fuel for fires itself.
The wicker cage began to roll and shake as Cuthman tore at it. Hal ran forward to help, crowing his triumph. Smudged from the smoke, but otherwise unburned, my son crawled forth, as a chick frees itself from the egg.
Gathering her cape around her, head held high, the witch spoke. ‘The Goddess has chosen to release the sacrifice,’ she claimed. ‘The rain comes from her, and nowhere else. See, the shower is ended again. Go free, stranger, and think deeply on how you spend your life. It may be that you are Christ’s creature - who can say? But I counsel you to take care how you think and speak of the Goddess.’
‘Silence, woman,’ the monk ordered. ‘We have seen a miracle here this night. A miracle from the Great Good Lord, when this woman cried to Him for help. Never doubt the truth of that. You, too, have been saved. If this lad had been killed by you, the next death would have been yours - hanged from a scaffold in the market square. The King and his bishops have laws against the likes of you. Be sure that we will watch you more closely from now on.’
‘Come, Mother. Come, Hal.’ Cuthman spoke for the first time, quiet and composed. ‘We will find a place to sleep, and in the morning we shall leave this place.’ He looked towards the monks. ‘My thanks, kind sirs, for your intentions. May you prevail in the struggle that is yet to come in this place.’
We turned away then, the ground wet beneath our feet. Even Hal was silent, as we walked, thinking no doubt of the long strange day we had just endured.