Lammas was almost upon us, and the leaves became a little dusty, while the flowerheads turned to seeds and the fruits ripened. The living became even easier and there were long afternoons when the sun was hot, and we sat in the shade telling stories and carding the new fleece. Frith and I had grown closer, not merely exchanging stories of our past lives, but, to my astonishment, delighting in the discovery that we were much less old than we had believed ourselves to be. Our bodies met and rocked together, my skin softening and blooming under his touch. Because of Cuthman, I had insisted we be discreet in our couplings, but it was plain that many of the villagers had seen the truth.
Fippa came to me one morning, as I sat with Frith, sharpening stakes for the new fence around the compound. She directed all her attention at me, ignoring my man entirely, squatting down in front of me, and taking a handful of woodchips to toy with as she spoke.
‘Woman,’ she began, ‘there is something irregular in your doings.’ She spoke slowly, in the tone of authority that came naturally to her. From such a small and ugly woman, it should have been comical, but something in her dark eyes made sure that I would listen seriously. I could never forget that I had seen her face in the hermit’s pool, nor shake off the notion that she had some link with my Wynn, which had yet to be revealed.
I gave no reply to her accusation. It never even entered my head to make denials to her. Neither of us needed to look at Frith to know that he was the subject under scrutiny.
‘We are past the usual season for handfasting,’ she continued. ‘And yet there is nothing to prevent it taking place now. Indeed my own mam used to favour Lammas over Midsummer.’ She scratched idle markings on the ground with her makeshift tool before glancing at me sideways, showing her black teeth in a crooked grin. ‘And would you have your child born without the proper processes?’
‘Child?’ A jolt flared through me, starting deep within and filling me down to my toes and fingertips. A thrill of magic and holiness and the most proud delight, and no trace of the fear that would have frozen me only a few months before. I felt warmth on my hand, and looked down to see Frith’s fingers curling into my palm. I gripped him tight, and gazed into his face. Red cheeks, silver-flecked beard, and grey eyes narrowed from staring into the sea and sky. What had we done together, without thinking or knowing a whisper about it?
‘I am to have a child?’ I murmured, turning back to Fippa. A tremor of fear swept through me, then, and guilt that I had perhaps done a wrong thing. The images of Wynn and Cuthman as babies came to me full and clear as if I relived those moorland days. The warm proud magic of first motherhood, after Wynn was born, mixed with the dread that I would not be allowed to do it again. I could surely not deserve such grace.
‘A little before Beltane,’ Fippa nodded. ‘Do you not feel it?’
‘I shook my head, wishing I could say I had known already. Such was Fippa’s power that I had no doubt that she was right.
‘And you will be handfasted with Frith? At the next full moon?’
I sighed, long and deep. The image of my full-grown son rose before me, like an angry angel, accusing and betrayed. How could I do this to him? I could not enter into a heathen ceremony of marriage, when I had been wedded to his father by a Christian priest, and lived as a Christian all my life.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I must wait for the church to be built, and be married there. I am a Christian.’
‘But Frith is not,’ Fippa snapped back. ‘And the growing of a church will take a great deal longer than the growing of a child.’
I shook my buzzing head. ‘Then I will wait,’ I said again. I could not worry about the status or future of a child I had known nothing of, a few moments earlier.
‘Do not break our friendship,’ she warned me, her voice low and harsh. Her lips drew back from the broken back teeth, in a strange grimace. ‘Together we can be contented and strong. You are welcome here, so long as you follow our ways. We have been pleased to see Frith made happy again. There is much to lose.’
I said nothing, though she expected something from me. At last, she threw down the chips of wood, so they fell into a design of their own accord. It was the rune of the grave, quite clearly. The long stem, with the same crooked branch on either side. The lines my grandmother had taught me, those that went with this rune, came into my head. ‘Riches fade, joys pass away, friendships end.’ Fippa was killing my love for Frith. I took the rune as a threat, more than a prediction. A challenge to me to defy her power. I stared at her, full of fear and doubt and anger. With a weird cackle, she got to her feet. A great crow she had tamed as a chick flapped over to her from a low branch close by, and settled on her shoulder. I shuddered. I had not seen it do this before, and had thought little of her having such a companion. Now I saw the meaning of it and understood how much trouble there was yet ahead of me.
When she had gone, Frith put his arm around my shoulder. He was trembling. ‘What have we done?’ he said.
‘We have taken pleasure in each other,’ I replied. ‘And nature has done the rest. We should be proud, not quivering like disobedient children. She took great pains to strike fear into us.’ I was still bewildered by what had taken place. I had believed Fippa to be a force for goodness, a woman who would rejoice at any new life. Instead, she had seemed intent on punishment and threat.
‘She did not expect defiance,’ he explained. ‘She has known little of it from these people.’
‘And you - what are you thinking now?’ It seemed that everything had changed between us. He had become weak in my eyes, merely because he had remained silent throughout the encounter with Fippa.
‘I would be honoured if you would be handfasted with me,’ he said gravely. ‘And I would feel the most favoured man on earth to have a child of my own, after so many years.’
‘I cannot give any undertakings,’ I told him, sadly. His hand still lay in mine, and when I looked at him, I almost felt the same eagerness for the sensations his body could give me. Almost, but not quite. ‘Something has been spoiled,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘It has been too brief,’ he whispered.
‘Is it finished then?’ He had given in much more easily and quickly than I could grasp. For me, there were still possibilities for us. Frith was alive and in good health. He did not cough, his bones were not staring out from his sides. Life had been proven by the seed taking root within me, and life brought hope with it, by its very nature.
‘No, no.’ He spoke in a voice thick with distress and denial, but I had no sense that he felt it was within his power to control the outcome of our story. ‘We have just begun.’ He squeezed my hand. ‘If only you will help me, and do all you can to placate Fippa.’
But I turned away from him, and walked up the knoll to the place where my son now had a hut of his own.
When I got there, Cuthman was nowhere to be seen. The foundation trench was finished by then, a four-sided scar on the hilltop, the soil banked up on the outside, all the way around, making it visible from some distance away. It had been finished for a week or more, and I was not sure what he intended to do next. Two days earlier, he had come down to the dining hall at sunset, sitting with Garth and Welf, Fippa’s sons, but saying little to them. It had surprised me at first, until I dismissed it as no more than a chance seating arrangement. There had not been space next to me, with Frith so attentive, and there had been a coolness between Cuthman and me for a few days.
The hut my son had erected for himself was meagre and makeshift. A rush bed, with a coarse cover and a raised ledge for his few possessions were all it contained. It was poorer than our old moorland home, and it hurt me to see it. The villagers lived more richly than this. They decorated their homes with woven wallhangings and rugs, carved wooden, bone and stone figures for their household gods, and they made dream-catchers from feathers which they dyed beautifully. I had never known such colour in my life as there was in Steyning. The women had learned to mix dyes of all kinds, and their woollens were bright yellows and blues. They used the weeds and shells and small creatures from the sea to make rich greens and browns, and they gathered the wild flowers to adorn their doorposts and hearths.
I tried to give full attention to Cuthman, and his long devotion to God. My loyalty must lie with him, whichever way I looked at the situation. I could not lie to him or conceal important matters from him. Without me, he would be completely alone, and my heart hurt to imagine it. I remembered for the second time that day the hermit we had stayed with, and could not wish my son to become such a creature. Assuming his absence meant he must be in the forest, choosing the trees for his church, or some such task, I sat against his hut, in the full sunshine, and gave myself up to my thoughts. An oddness in my mouth, as if I had tasted a piece of iron, made me shiver. It was a sign of a child growing inside me. I remembered it from those many years before. However many years might pass, I would not forget those strange alarming changes which gripped me when I was with child. The swelling of my breasts, making them itch and chafe, the burning in my throat after every meal, the great desire to drink a cold infusion of rosehips - as well as the sickness that rose in me at the very thought of any warm drink - all came into my mind, and made me feel foolish. Surely I was too old for such stuff now? Too old and weary. I had seen too much to have the proper springs of playfulness and patience for a little child. A new shame at what I had done flushed through me, and a kind of terror at the mockery I would attract.
And only then, as I shifted a little on the hard ground, did the real fear strike me. My back! Was it not certain that in giving birth again I would once more be crippled? How strange that I had not thought of that before. So complete was my recovery that the old pain and stiffness were like dreams, lost in the far past. My couplings with Frith had been so supple and lively, bucking and riding, over and under him, rolling and bending like a girl half my age, that it was as if the trouble had never been. Was I to be blighted again, as retribution for my folly? Had I deserved such harsh punishment? I needed to know, in that instant, what I could expect, and it seemed to me that Cuthman was the only person who could tell me.
I heard men’s voices, coming up the hillside from the forest, precisely where I could not see because of the hut. They were laughing, eager-sounding and merry. Come to take a look at Cuthman’s digging, I thought, expecting some mockery. It occurred to me to jump up and run down the hill to avoid them, but I was lazy and warm and had little to fear from them but unkind words.
Their conversation became more serious, as they approached, and I could make out the words.
‘No need to fell the mature trees, lad,’ came one.
‘No indeed,’ echoed another. ‘What’s needed is the saplings, growing straight and tall. That’s the easy way.’
‘Thank you friends,’ came the grave tones of my son. Although his voice was still young and light, he made himself sound older by speaking slow, and saying each word carefully. I had become accustomed to it, but hearing it unexpectedly now, I was more aware of the strangeness of it. He gave everything weight and meaning, merely by speaking in such a way.
I stood up, confused and timid to be found there by the village men, despite having every reason to be visiting my son. Awareness of my condition had changed everything, and made me want to hide away from people until I had absorbed the knowledge.
They were startled to see me, squinting into the bright sun which was high in the sky by then. The two men stood either side of Cuthman, as if guarding him. They were not twins, although they looked it, and I was never fully sure which was Garth and which Welf. They did most things together, and had a way of speaking as one which I found strange. They were shaped much like their mother - short and broad, with strong black hair that frizzed out from their heads and chins. I had never thought to enquire who their father might have been and what had become of him.
‘You have found help, then, son?’ I said, my heart thumping chokingly in my breast. My voice came thin and breathless.
‘Oh, aye,’ said one of his companions - Welf, I think.
The other chimed in. ‘He needs it, for sure.’
‘He can use our oxen, when the harvest is done.’
‘Best team in the village,’ came a grinning boast. There was a rhythm, almost musical, in the way they spoke, as if knowing exactly what each other would say. They formed an impression of something powerful, invincible. They were like a team of oxen themselves, I realised, and smiled a little at the idea.
And then it seemed that the business was done. They clapped Cuthman on his shoulders, and set off down the slope, turning once to wave at us. ‘They are oddly friendly,’ I murmured. ‘What have you done to them?’
‘Acted the helpless fool,’ Cuthman’s reply came glib, pleased at his own cleverness. ‘I knew that if I seemed to be making mistakes, floundering helpless and muddled, there would be some who could not abide to see it. They have a need to see a thing, whatever it be, done well. If the village is to have a church, then it is important to them that it be a good church.’
‘Yet they have no love for your God, or what you mean to do with your church.’
‘They forget that. The building is the thing for them now.’
‘And so they are the fools.’
‘Indeed.’
If it had mattered more to me then what kind of person my son was becoming, I might have made some attempt to guide him. Although I might equally not have done. Cuthman was his own man and had been for a long time. He was no longer any responsibility of mine, and his virtues were not to my credit, any more than his defects were of my doing. And yet in that clear morning, full of my own inner self, I did glimpse a maggot within the lad that perturbed me. I felt a kink in what I had until then believed to be a character at least virtuous, if not entirely saintly. And the glimpse did not serve my own purposes well at all. I needed a soft forgiving son that day. Understanding, loving and helpful, too.
But I had come to share my secret with him, and share it I did, though it was hard to gain his attention. We had grown apart since our arrival here and he had all but forgotten me, I think.
‘Son, I have need of your church. May it be completed swiftly.’
He gazed at the foundation trenches, and then upwards to the invisible edifice which had become his life’s work. ‘It will be swift,’ he replied.
‘Then I might be married in it, before midwinter?’
He did not react immediately, and when he did it was to echo ‘Midwinter? That is impossible.’
‘But I must be married, and soon.’
Only then did he look at me and frown deeply at my words. ‘What are you saying, mother? What nonsense is this?’
‘I wish to marry Frith, and for your sake it should be at the altar of your new church.’
‘For my sake? When did you do anything for my sake?’
The sharpness cut me worse than a knife could have done. I gawped at him, unable to speak. What injury or resentment was he harbouring? What failure of mine stuck in his breast, to make him say such a thing? When, indeed, when had I ever put my own requirements before his? A rage gripped me, in the wake of the hurt, and I stepped up close to him.
‘How dare you!’ I screamed at him. ‘How can you dare to say that? I have crouched in that filthy cart month after month, in obedience to your whims – ‘ I stopped abruptly, seeing that I was taking myself right away from where I needed to be with him.
‘But you let those women torment me, and never came to save me,’ he hissed, his face pinched at the memories. So that was it. It was at least a relief to know where the poison came from. My anger left as quickly as it had come and guilt replaced it. I had carried the same unease about the Maiden Castle women and my abandonment of my son, ever since we’d escaped.
‘It’s true,’ I agreed, humble and quiet. ‘And I am deeply sorry for it.’ I quelled the stirring protests in my heart - for what I could possibly have done to help him was still a mystery to me.
A silence followed, where we wrestled with pride and guilt, and the blood bond between us reasserted itself.
‘The church, then – ‘ I began again, needing to persist.
‘The church,’ he agreed, gazing once more at the place where the roof or the tower might be. ‘You have need of my church, mother?’
‘For my marriage,’ I repeated. ‘I wish to marry Frith. And soon.’
‘For what purpose?’ He spoke mildly, but I was suddenly afraid.
‘Purpose?’ I forced a laugh, which echoed mockingly back at me.
‘Marriage has a purpose. It is a sacrament. It is God’s mark on a couple who wish to lie together, for the purpose of creating children.’
‘That’s true,’ I nodded, even more afraid.
‘And none of that can have any meaning for you,’ he smiled. ‘You are my mother, which is an honourable position. I will require you to serve my church, in many different ways. But this talk of a marriage is madness - you have been too long in the sun, perhaps. You are old, mother, and beyond marrying. I will build the church in my own good time, for my own good reasons. The altar will indeed mark the joining of the young people in the village, as well as their baptisms and burials. But never again speak to me of a marriage between you and Frith, because such talk sickens me. Do you understand?’
I turned and ran down the hill, tears blinding me. Inside I felt as if turned to ash, ready to throw myself into the rippling sea, or to hang myself from one of the great oaks in the forest.
My breach with Cuthman persisted throughout the remains of the summer. I was an outcast once more, but this time it was not of my own choosing and it was a source of some misery to me. The child within me brought a sickness which took away all pleasure in eating. Frith and I lay together most nights, gentle and quiet, although now and then we would couple, as if to grasp at the memories of what we had had so few months earlier. The exchange between us, that morning when Fippa revealed my pregnancy, had not recurred. We were bonded, whether we chose it or not, and the community pushed us together as if there could be no doubting the rightness.
But Fippa cast angry glances my way whenever she met me about the village and I felt more and more afraid of her. I let my smock hang loose, before making a bigger one hoping it would conceal the swelling of my belly. I had not yet told Cuthman of my reason for wishing to marry Frith, and the urgency of the need. At first I feared that Fippa or her sons would tell him, but as the weeks passed and he made no reference to it when we met in the hall, I grew less suspicious. By degrees, I became accustomed to the idea of the coming child, curious as to what Fate might bring me this time. Frith laid his hands on my tightening skin, and spoke to his seed, sweet and loving, and I allowed myself to hope that we could be a plain little family, two ageing parents of a late loved infant.
The harvest was good; the hunters boasted of the size of the boar they killed in the forest; and the sea yielded up great fishes which kept us healthy with their oil and rich flesh. It was truly a land of plenty, and in that first year of our coming there was no hint of invasion or battles or hardships of any kind. We attracted no attention from the wealthy landowners to the east or the west of us. Bordered as we were by sea and forest, tucked into the shallow kink of the coastline, we were an enchanted island of peace for that brief time when my child quickened within me and Cuthman built his church.
But my days were bleak, for all that. Frith was at heart a fisherman and he would be gone for the entire day in his fragile coracle, rowing himself up and down the shoreline, with his nets and lines, bringing back strange bounty. I had no special friend amongst the villagers, thanks, I believe, to Fippa’s antagonism to me. The women would smile and nod as we passed, and would pass me fleece or peas or corn to work with, alongside them. But they directed little conversation my way, and I never once felt free to reveal my feelings or my fears to them.
So I dreamed my own dreams, remembering my life to that point, rehearsing my story, drawing conclusions now and then as to the meaning of what had befallen me. I recalled Wynn and Spenna and sweet young Hal, with great fondness. I allowed myself to dwell on my memories of Edd, and savour the fellowship he and I had known when we broke away together from the village and made something of our lives on the high windy moors. It seemed that I was telling it all to the budding child within me, for lack of any other listener. To be with child, after all, is to have a companion at all times, whether or not the people around are friendly. It is one of the great delights of the condition, and in that long slow summer and autumn, my little one was my best and dearest friend. The stirrings as it jumped and danced in my belly were its responses to my tales and my thoughts, and I took great joy and comfort from it.
Cuthman sustained his links with Garth and Welf, and they loaned him the oxen as promised, to drag the great bundles of cut saplings from the forest to the knoll. It seemed to me that the villagers grew increasingly tolerant of the strange Christian in their midst, until they came to favour him over me. They would make comments on the progress of the church walls, with the carefully-chosen saplings placed edge to edge, knocked close and tight. The position of the wide church door at the western end, and the high window facing it drew admiration and some excitement. There was much debate as to whether there would be a tower, as someone had seen in a church some distance away.
But the great Sacred Stone was the true centre of the people’s reverence. Cuthman’s church was a sideshow, an amusing distraction and no more. The Stone contained the real power, the God who ordained the success of the harvest and the harmony of our lives. I fell into the habit of visiting it alone in the early morning, and tracing the markings on it. It held an appeal for me that I did not properly understand. The smooth surface, sparkling in the bright sun, made it seem alive at times. I never worshipped it as the others did, but I stood in awe and allowed its influence to flow through me.
My favourite marking on it was the small cluster of acorns on the side facing north - where the great dark forest lay. I would sit and stare at that area, marvelling at the accuracy of the carving, and the meaning behind it. Perhaps the acorn somehow stood for my growing child, in my mind, although it never fully occurred to me that this was so. I had always marvelled at the strength and size of mature oak trees, especially those that stood proud and isolated in a field or on a hilltop. The magic of such a massive tree growing from a small smooth acorn had struck me forcibly in my childhood, and came back to me now. The idea of small beginnings leading to undreamed-of consequences, the potential wrapped tight inside every tiny seed, was the drift of my thoughts, and it brought me great comfort.
On a golden day, when the leaves on the trees were yellow and red and orange, Cuthman’s church became more than a sideshow. We had been waiting and preparing for the first frosts of the season, gathering in the fruits and nuts and fattening the young hogs and lambs for the great Samhain killing. The colours and activities all conspired to remind me of the year before when Edd had dropped at his threshing. It seemed to me a hundred years had passed since that time, instead of merely one. I was lost in my own thoughts, caught on a fulcrum between the past and the future, glad to be busy while destiny twisted and turned all around me.
Garth and Welf had grown tetchy with Cuthman once or twice over the conflicting needs for the oxen. The men wished to drag firewood from the forest, as well as clearing some land ready for spring ploughing. Cuthman had fallen into the habit of tethering the beasts overnight close by his hut, rather than return them to their rightful byre down in the village, and I had heard some heated words on the subject, only the day before. Early next day, Garth defiantly went up the knoll and brought the beasts home, his head high, and Cuthman watched him from his hilltop. I stood with Frith and shivered at my son’s stance, recalling the way he had punished those who obstructed him during our travelling time.
Perhaps for the same reason, many of the villagers seemed to me to be watching the knoll more closely than usual. The sun was low in the sky, casting sharp shadows and warm only when a body stood full in its rays. A mist lay at the sea’s edge, rolling like an animal, casting a magic that seemed to fill the morning. It was as if everyone knew something would happen that day.
As if drawn by hunger or curiosity or the earth’s own forces, people began to drift towards Cuthman’s knoll, myself among them. My son had been working outside when the oxen were collected, packing in more saplings, finishing the last of the four walls, paying close attention to the corner, which involved him in something of a struggle. Each of the four corners was marked by a much larger tree trunk, which had been split and smoothed and buried more deeply in the foundation trench than the timbers of the walls between. Fitting the saplings close into this final corner was evidently a challenging task and I wondered whether something was going awry with it, from the time it was taking. After watching Garth for a few moments, Cuthman returned to the task with ferocious vigour.
I climbed the hill with a small group of four or five villagers, perhaps with the idea of offering help. We did not speak and the strangeness of our action was palpable. Not one of us truly knew why we went, in the way we did. It had naught to do with the oxen, despite that being the trigger for our attention. It can only be that God drove us up there, to stand witness to the completion of the outer shell of the new church. Afterwards, it seemed simple and clear to me that this had been the reason. Or part of it, at least.
We arrived at the moment when Cuthman stood back, to inspect his work. He was a strange figure, in great leather gauntlets and high calfskin boots, wrapped around with a woollen tunic. His face was red with the hard labour, but his eyes were shining.
‘Tis done!’ he exulted. ‘I must give thanks for it.’ He paid no attention to me or the others, but walked all around his building, slapping it here and there, filled with pride and gladness. And then he did the thing which people still speak of, twenty and more years later.
The sun was filtering through the trees, to the east of us, and striking the church where it stood proud on the hilltop, pouring in through the great space that would become a window at the eastern end and filling the church with light. Cuthman strode in through the doorway at the opposite end, with us following him like baby chicks after their dam. The sunlight struck us full in the face, a broad beam filled with dancing motes. Cuthman pulled off his gauntlets, flexing his stiff fingers a little and glancing round a moment for a place to lay them. Finding nowhere convenient in the bare empty church, he simply laid them on the sunbeam, as if it were a shelf provided for the purpose. They hung there, swaying gently with the motes, the heavy creased leather seemingly lighter than any feather or thistledown. Cuthman went to the eastern window, where his altar would one day be, and knelt to pray, his back turned to us.
Like sheep, we huddled in the doorway, staring open-mouthed at the dangling gauntlets. ‘A miracle!’ one man breathed, and the others murmured their accord. Patiently we waited for what would come next. Would the gloves fall to the ground, the magic spell slowly weakening like glue that cannot hold? Would God Himself appear to us, a misty ghost on this enchanted day? We were ready for whatever might come, excited and apprehensive.
But we had already witnessed the whole of the miraculous occurrence. Cuthman finished his prayers, stood up and reclaimed his gauntlets from the helpful sunbeam, catching them as they hung there and pushing them onto his hands again. A complacency sat on his face which told me that he knew full well the effect of this piece of magic. A friendly smile was directed at us, but nothing more. It was as if a barrier of some kind kept him away from us. There would have been no possibility of touching him then, in his exalted state. The villagers were to be his sheep, and the ease with which he would capture them made him glow with satisfaction.
When my companions broke away to run down the hillside and tell the others of the miracle they had witnessed, I stayed behind. I had an unfinished matter to confront, and I knew this had to be the moment.
‘You have convinced them,’ I said, in a low voice. ‘Just as I suppose you meant to. And the church is close to completion now.’
He nodded, moving away from me towards his hut.
‘Wait, Cuthie,’ I pleaded. ‘I must speak with you.’
He paused, and half turned. ‘Well?’ he said. His tone was neither sharp nor gentle, but at least it had patience in it.
‘Son, I am with child, and must be married to the father, in this church. I am sorry if this pains you, or causes you any trouble, but it is so, and nothing can change it now.’ I pulled my clothes tight across my belly, to show the swelling there. A fatter woman would have had nothing as yet to display, but I had never carried spare flesh. ‘See!’
He would not look, but sent his gaze back to his precious church. ‘The roof is still to be done,’ he said. ‘That is no simple matter. It could take many months.’
‘But it will not,’ I said. ‘You would not delay just to punish me. There are greater matters at stake for you than that.’
He paused, thoughtful and calm. I searched for some sign of anger or disgust, but found none. ‘Who is the child’s father?’ he asked.
‘Frith. Of course it is Frith. Need you ask me that?’
He smiled then. ‘For a moment I wondered whether you might claim that it was a child of God, an immaculate conception. A young rival for me.’
‘You have become cruel, Cuthman. Is this the way a holy man speaks to his mother?’
‘I am not cruel, far from it. I will do as you ask. The church will be complete by Christ’s Mass, and we will celebrate at my altar. You and Frith shall have your wedding and the child shall be baptised when it is born. Yes, I see now how this strange news fits my plan. I see that it will be the means by which I bring all these people to God and his holy church. Now go. Go back to your grizzled lover and keep yourself well for the events to come. They will be speaking of nothing else but me and my church today. Be good enough to encourage them to turn their hearts and souls this way, and forget their heathen Stone.’
I should have felt relief, even pleasure, at the promise of a Christian marriage only two or three moons hence. Instead I was humiliated once again by my son, and sickened by the creature he had become. As I nestled that night against Frith and told him everything that had taken place that day, I understood what it was that so saddened me: Cuthman felt no love. Not for me or for the people here. Not for Wynn or Edd or anyone he had known in his young life. He might be a man of God, capable of great and wonderful acts, but he had a cold unfeeling heart, and I had not allowed myself to see it until that day. That someone in possession of such power could be so cold distressed and frightened me. That it was my own son brought me close to despair.
‘Hush,’ Frith whispered to me, as I revealed some of this to him. ‘He is a man now, beyond your influence and care. We will not allow him to harm us, you see.’
I was scarcely comforted. The thought struck me that Cuthman might be about to do others harm, through Frith and me and our baby, and I shivered at it.
Winter came on like the cold dragon it can often be. The wind turned to the east and cut bitterly into our frail homes and clothes. We worked doggedly at felting and weaving capes and covers for protection, wrapping the children so tight and thick that they could scarcely walk. The older villagers fell to coughing and shaking, huddling by the fires, which smoked sulkily and seldom burned with a good flame. I was warmed from within by the child that now leaped and turned and was so alive that I could seldom ignore it. I stayed away from Cuthman, ignoring him when he came to share the meals in the hall, but keeping close watch on the progress of his roof.
As the winter solstice approached, Cuthman changed his habits, and came down to the village for part of every day. He began by speaking to small groups of two or three villagers, reminding them of the birth of the Christ child, the plain sign from the Lord God that he loved and valued every living person, and wished them to be saved, so they could claim their rightful place in Heaven, at His side. He chose his words carefully, using visions of warmth and comfort, which I heard the people using afterwards, as they talked over what he had said. They had been ignorant of the basic Christian doctrine and Cuthman made much of this. He spoke glowingly of God’s patience with those living in darkness through no fault of their own. The Word had spread across Britain, but there were still forgotten areas, where the missionaries had not reached. But – and I could imagine his tone deepening and his expression growing severe – once the Word of the Lord had been delivered and heard, there could be no excuse for turning away from the Truth. Anyone doing that ran the grave risk of being damned. It seemed that he had not given any detail as to what this might mean, but had wisely left it to the people’s own imaginings.
The church roof still had its bare bones showing by Christmas time, and I felt a sharp disappointment when I saw that it could not be finished in time. Clumsily, my belly heavy and full by then, I climbed the hill to confront my son.
‘You have not fulfilled your promise,’ I burst out, standing in the doorway of his hut and gazing at him where he lay on his straw. ‘You show no sign of even making an attempt to do so.’
‘I cannot gather the reeds for the thatch at this season,’ he said calmly. ‘The church has no need of a roof for now. I could be ready to perform your marriage on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Will that please you? I see my brother grows apace.’
And he fixed his gaze on my belly for the first time. I was caught by a single word. ‘Brother?’ I hadn’t known until that moment how powerfully I was hoping for a daughter, to keep by me in my old age.
The idleness in his attitude, the self-satisfaction and sense of knowing better than anyone else in the world was maddening to me. I did not want to give birth to another such as he. As Cuthman grew into manhood and gained in power, I liked him less and less.
He nodded. ‘I believe so,’ he said carelessly. ‘Now leave me Mother, and prepare for your nuptials, such as they may be.’ He gave a short barking laugh, filled with scorn, and once more I left him full of bitter humiliation.
The next day he came down to the village again, and walked to and fro on the hard ground, calling to the people to come out of their huts and follow him to the church, at one hour past sunset. ‘Bring your torches, and your best bread and wine,’ he ordered. ‘Today is one of the most holy, and it is time to bring our church alive with songs and prayers.’
The Solstice celebrations had already taken place around the Sacred Stone, with the fires to burn the old year, and the tallow candles to greet the new one. The people were settling in to endure the winter, consoled only by the slow lengthening of the days and the salted meat packed away. The prospect of another festival in the strange half-finished church on the hill, held little but curiosity and entertainment for them, spiced with Cuthman’s talk of heaven and hell and the great loving God that watched over their souls.
I was close by when a group of woman consulted Fippa on whether they should go as Cuthman directed. The witch-woman did not hesitate. ‘Go,’ she advised. ‘There is nothing to fear, and much to learn. This God who knows so little of life that he sends his son down to earth at the coldest time of the year, and builds fires to punish the ignorant may have much to entertain us. I shall be there myself, my friends. This is something not to be missed.’
I smiled to myself at her wit, despite the gathering clouds of battle I could foresee. She and Cuthman made worthy adversaries, each so certain of the right way. The Mass would indeed be an event to be witnessed. I had no doubt that the people of Steyning would never forget it, however it turned out.