Today the palace was empty: the king was hunting in the west; but the party’s destination was a third entity, that lay just beside it: a small group of buildings within their own walled enclosure, through the gate of which they now entered quietly. For this was the abbey: and it was here, in the small but distinguished group of twelve nuns, that Port’s sister led her life.
There were several buildings – the nuns’ house, a wooden church, a refectory; but it was to a small, stone chapel with two side aisles and a steep wooden roof that they were now led by one of the nuns. It was a single structure with small windows and triangular pointed arches, but it was not without a certain quiet elegance. The nuns’ greatest pride were the beautifully carved pillars on each side of the west door, whose sides were covered with a wonderful pattern of interlocking knots and whose square capitals depicted a similarly intricate design of interwoven dragons – Saxon workmanship at its best. There was a delicate smell of incense in the church, and everywhere there was evidence of its rich endowments in the gold and silver ornaments, the splendid hangings, and the finely woven altar cloth.
Aelfwald the thane often visited the abbey; he liked to pay his respects to the abbess, who was a distant kinswoman of the king himself, and to admire the stone church, which was by far the finest building in the area. And Port had come to see his sister. The abbess entered almost immediately, accompanied by Edith. The two nuns exchanged polite greetings with their guests; then Port and Edith drew to one side.
She was not an attractive woman. Thin like her brother, though ten years younger, she had a face over which the pale skin was drawn tightly, so that her appearance was skeletal, an impression made worse by yellowish eyes and pale lips which often turned blue in the winter months. She was lucky to have been accepted in the abbey, for most of the nuns were high born, and their families had given endowments far beyond the means of Port. Indeed, it was only thanks to the support of Aelfwald that she had been accepted. But she had come to the abbey with high ambitions. Several of the nuns there, including the abbess, had been trained in the great double minster of Wimborne, twenty miles to the south west, where two large, though carefully segregated communities, one of monks, the other of nuns, were ruled over by a single abbess. In previous centuries, great missionaries like Boniface, who had set out from the newly converted Anglo-Saxon island to convert the heathen tribes of north east Europe, had drawn many of their best assistants from the great Wimborne community, and Edith had hoped that from Wilton, she too might be selected for such work. But the wise abbess had soon seen that Edith was not the stuff that missionaries were made of; no invitation to go to Wimborne had come, and it was clear that she would live out the rest of her life in the little community with the other nuns.
Now she had only one ambition – and since she had time to brood, it was never out of her mind. For she alone of all the nuns had made no contribution to the abbey, and though she was never reminded of it, she felt the disgrace keenly. It was because of this, three years before, that she had given her small inheritance to her brother to keep for her, and won from him, in a weak moment, a promise that he would add to it when he could, so that the family could buy a fine gold cross to be given to the abbey. Night and day she dreamed of it: to be sure, it would not rival some of the fine jewelled ornaments given by the king; but it would stand there, simple but dignified on the altar in the abbey church, and the nuns would know that the family of Edith had given it.
Then had come the news of Port’s accident and the trial that must follow. She had said nothing to anyone, but alone in her room, she had calculated, with rising excitement, the sum that she knew he must receive in wergild; and added to what she had given him, she knew that it would be enough. As the days passed, she had gone about her duties in a state of suppressed excitement; there was a new fervour in her prayers; her singing of the psalms was almost tuneful. For no reason that any of the other nuns knew, it was clear that she had some new and secret joy.
This was Port’s dilemma.
It was a clearly understood rule, under the Anglo-Saxon legal system, that when a churl possessed five hides of land – a hide, depending on the quality of the land, being usually between forty and over a hundred and twenty acres – he automatically had the right to the status of thane. A man like Aelfwald had many scores of hides; Port had four.
The money from the wergild, added to what he had saved, together with some of the money that his sister had entrusted to him, would be enough to buy the last hide.
For two weeks, he too had been making secret calculations; and he too had been living in a state of suppressed excitement: for there was nothing in the world that he wanted more passionately than this all-important status for himself and his family.
But he had given Edith his word: the money ought to go to her golden cross. Surely, he told himself, the money for the cross could be found later; but if that were true, then so could the money for the land – and in his heart of hearts, he did not believe that it ever would be. If he broke his promise to Edith, would anyone ever know? No. It was, and would certainly remain, their secret. Would she not rather he became a thane? He shook his head despondently. He knew what she wanted. And as he entered the abbey, thought of her pale, expectant face and of his hide of land, he did not know what to do.
Now Edith was beside him.
She took his bandaged arm in her thin hands and looked up at him tenderly.
“I am sorry you were injured,” she said gently.
“It was nothing.” His voice was cold. He had not meant it to be.
For a moment neither spoke. Then, like a drop of water that one has been watching form, the inevitable question softly fell.
“Did you win your case?”
He nodded miserably.
“Sigewulf paid the wergild?”
Again he nodded. She gazed up at him; then, unable to contain herself, she broke into a smile. Her smile disclosed a row of surprisingly good teeth and, for a moment, she almost looked beautiful.
“You have the wergild?” He nodded once more. “Have we enough?” she asked eagerly.
Still he could not bring himself to admit it.
“Perhaps. I do not know,” he lied.
Her face fell. “Surely . . .” she checked herself. She knew she must not question her brother. “I had hoped . . .” she began. He could see the happy excitement draining out of her.
“There may be. I will see,” he said quickly, unable to bear the spectacle any longer. He could not look into her eyes.
She nodded slowly. He felt wretched, almost as though he had committed violence against her frail body.
“You will tell me when it is possible,” she murmured sadly. Her submissiveness gently quenched the little flame of hope she had allowed to exalt her.
He nodded. “Of course.”
A few moments later, they rejoined the others.
The abbess was showing Aelfwald the latest treasure that had come to the abbey. It was a book of the Gospels – a huge, leather-bound volume, its cover studded with magnificent jewels in the shape of a cross and its pages splendidly illuminated.
Over the centuries, the art of book illumination had been brought to its wonderful flowering in the Saxon north of England and the monasteries of Celtic Ireland, culminating in such masterpieces as the great Book of Kells, completed only a few generations before, and the Gospels from Lindisfarne, the holy monastic island off the coast of Northumbria; the brilliant scholarship and craftsmanship of Mercia was well known; and in southern Britain, too, there was a fine school of illumination at Canterbury, now being emulated at Alfred’s Winchester. But the invasions of the heathen Danes had destroyed most of the schools in the northern half of the country, and this magnificent volume had only recently been rescued from a monastery in Mercia: it made a splendid addition to the treasures of Wilton.
The abbess was pointing to the finely written text. Most of the uncial scripts used in England derived either from the Celtic Irish or the continental Frankish school known as Carolingian.
“See,” she remarked, “the Mercian monk has adapted the Carolingian script – good, square lettering.”
Aelfwald said nothing. All scripts were as one to him, for like most Saxon nobles, he could neither read nor write – a shortcoming for which King Alfred, who was painfully learning these arts himself, had several times taken him to task.
But Aelfwald’s eye had been caught by something else. And it was causing him to smile.
Osric was twelve years old. A short, serious little boy, his two most noticeable features were his large grey eyes and his small hands with stubby thumbs, both of which he had inherited from his father, who was a carpenter working on Aelfwald’s estate. Some years previously when, rather to Aelfwald’s surprise, his second son Aelfwine had decided that he wished to become a monk, the thane had set up a small monastic cell for six monks on his estate near Twyneham, down on the coast, and installed Aelfwine there, hoping that in time he would change his mind. So far, the young man had not. And when the carpenter confided to his lord that his young son Osric had a similar ambition, the thane in his cheerful way had sent the boy down there too. “At least Aelfwine can keep an eye on him and let us know as soon as he’s had enough,” he remarked to the carpenter. That had been almost a year ago.
But when, three days ago, Osric had come to visit his parents, the thane had noticed that the boy did not seem to he happy. The reports of him from Aelfwine had been good, and neither the carpenter nor the thane had been able to discover what was the matter. Perhaps, Aelfwald guessed, the boy regretted his decision, but was too proud, or too frightened, to say so.
He had kept young Osric with him for several days, and though he had repeatedly asked him: “Are you certain you wish to be a monk?” the boy had always assured him that he did. It still seemed to Aelfwald that the boy was unhappy, but whatever his secret, it was obvious that no one was going to find out.
But now, suddenly, Osric’s face was shining. As he studied the illuminated book, followed the careful penwork, the exquisite choice of reds and blues, the gold leaf applied around the elaborate capitals, it was clear that the boy was lost to the world. It was not surprising that Osric, descendant of countless generations of craftsmen, should have been moved by such workmanship; but as soon as he saw it, Aelfwald smiled. The boy’s obvious fascination had given the thane a new idea – a solution that might make young Osric happy, add lustre to his own reputation, and even please the king as well.
Resting his hand on Osric’s shoulder he asked:
“Do you think you could do that?”
The boy considered slowly.
“I think so, my lord.”
“And would you like to?” Aelfwald went on.
The boy’s eyes sparkled. “Oh yes.”
“Good. Then that’s what you will do. I will speak with the king. This summer you’ll be sent either to Winchester or Canterbury to learn your craft. You’d like that?”
Osric’s face gave him all the answer he needed.
“Splendid. We have a new craftsman,” he announced to the abbess. He smiled. Whatever was wrong with the boy, this seemed to have settled it; and Aelfwald liked to settle things.
While this conversation was taking place, a very different one was going on between the thane’s youngest son Aelfstan, his daughter Aelfgifu, and poor Edith. Aelfstan was indulging in his favourite occupation of teasing.
“Yes,” Aelfstan assured the nun, with a sad shake of his head, “my father says that if Aelfgifu cannot find a husband in the next two months, she’s to come here as a nun.” He sighed. “So far, Edith, no bridegroom has appeared.”
The effect of this invented news exceeded his greatest hopes.
As she gazed up at the handsome, strapping and obviously disruptive eighteen-year-old girl, who was known throughout the area to be wilder than any young man, the nun’s face registered horror. She looked from one to the other. Both brother and sister were shaking their heads despondently.
“A nun?” The idea was too awful to contemplate. “But surely . . .” she began. “Such haste . . . A year or two at least?”
“No.” Aelfstan was adamant. “My father never changes his mind.”
Edith’s jaw had now dropped open; she tried to swallow.
“Well,” Aelfstan continued briskly. “I’m sure she’ll be happy here, won’t you, Aelfgifu?”
“Oh yes,” the girl replied gaily. And then as an afterthought: “Will I still be allowed to ride and hunt?”
“Hunt?” Edith’s eyes opened wide as she tried to take in this idea.
“Occasionally?” Aelfgifu. suggested. She was a fine horsewoman, and had gone out hawking with the king himself.
“No, no,” the nun murmured. This terrible news had, for a moment, driven even the thought of the golden cross from her mind. “Our chief occupation is our needlework,” she added seriously. For the nuns were rightly proud of the magnificent embroidery they produced, working together, silently, patiently, hour after hour.
Aelfgifu let out a guffaw of laughter that rang round the chapel, and held up her large strong hands. “I can hardly hold a needle,” she cried.