The View From the Cart (20 page)

‘Should we try to go away again?' I said.

He shook his head. ‘I cannot,' he replied. ‘I must eat.'

As if waiting for this admission, a tall woman in a long blue cloak stepped from a narrow space between two wattles, and came towards us, gliding rather than walking. She had thick brown hair, and broad cheeks. Her hands were tucked inside the cloak, like a monk. She stared at Cuthman, with narrowed eyes, seeming to be concentrating on his groin, which was poorly concealed by his shabby tunic.

‘Good morning, strangers,' the woman said, slowly. Her accent was strange, but we could understand her. ‘You look cold and hungry, am I right?'

We nodded, but said nothing. We did not doubt that she would give us food, without any need for undue supplication.

‘Come then,' she invited, taking a step backwards. Cuthman stood, and held out his arm for me. I tried not to lean on him more than necessary. The woman led us through the gap in the fence, and into a wide open space, with hard-packed bare earth and some rough huts encircling it. Most of them seemed empty and unfit to live in. One had a fallen tree lying across it. Two woman sat beside a fire, some distance away. A dog came trotting towards us.

We crossed the open area to the fire, eagerly expecting something hot to be offered us to eat or drink. The women looked up at us, showing weathered brown faces and broken teeth. They were old, both of them, much older than me. Their hands were like twisted thorn roots, with blackened cracks around the nails. One looked hard at our blue-cloaked escort. ‘A man, Enthia?' she croaked, and tried to laugh. A rattling cough emerged instead.

The younger woman smiled patiently, but I thought there was a twitch of disgust at the corners of her mouth and the sides of her nostrils.

‘Lean, by his looks,' said the other crone. ‘Cold and weary.'

I was growing impatient at this delay. Close by the fire, we were already warmer, but I could see no trace of food, nor smell any. I looked to the woman who had been addressed as Enthia, for enlightenment.

‘I will fetch milk,' she said. ‘Sit down and warm yourselves. Soon there will be hot broth.' She glided away then, towards a larger hut in better condition than the others. It had an open front, and I thought I could see some movement inside, though it was in shadow. She went inside, and I realised that Cuthman and I had both been watching her go with a childlike wistfulness. We were not easy in the company of the two unpleasant old women.

Instead of turning to face them, I looked away, and scanned the settlement. Between two of the decaying huts I could see a strange arrangement of troughs and barrels which seemed to fill a large area. Turning again, towards the weak morning sun, the wattle fence proceeded. This side of it was unpainted, and propped up in places by lengths of wood. The impression was that this was the ‘back' of it, where there was no need for ornamentation or tidiness. A considerable distance away, there rose a much stouter wall, the height of two men, with protrusions on its top at intervals, which I could not make out from where I sat. The population of this settlement appeared to be much depleted, and I wondered at the women we had seen so far, and what their lives were about.

The crones both coughed repeatedly, and stirred the fire a little. They seemed to be waiting for something, but with no sense of urgency. Perhaps it's death that's coming for them, I thought, glancing once or twice at their wrinkled faces and awful hands. They were like horrible demons, kept alive beyond their natural span by some sorcery. I felt no inclination to speak to them, and I was sure that the same was true for Cuthman. They mumbled quietly between coughs, but did not seem to be in conversation. The time drew out, but nothing happened. The sun stood still behind a pale thin covering of cloud, sounds drifted to us of children playing, the dog had flopped down close by, forming a rough circle around the fire, and I began to feel warm and drowsy.

At last the woman came back carrying a large blue jug in one hand and a deep bowl in the other. Her hands were small and white, and her right arm braced against the weight of the full jug. Where did she get milk from, I wondered? I had seen no sign of cattle.

‘Sheep's milk,' she announced, as she set the jug carefully between us, bending her back with a suppleness that made me envy her.

I had never milked sheep for my own sustenance, only to get the flow started for a lamb to suckle. It seemed that a great many ewes would be needed to fill a jug of such size every day. And did the lambs not go hungry if the people took all their rightful food? Since my earliest years, I had seldom tasted milk of any kind - the village cattle had been prized more for meat than for milk.

The woman handed me the bowl, less than half full. I sipped it, not knowing what to expect. It tasted thin and sour and I could not believe that it would nourish me. But I was thirsty and drained the bowl, just the same. Cuthman did likewise, though unable to conceal the little curl of distaste that crossed his lips.

‘You will learn to enjoy it,' the woman said, her voice smooth and rich. ‘Later there will be cheese, made from the curds. This is merely the whey.' I had little understanding of the uses of milk, but grasped that this was some poor substitute for the real thing. The
later
intrigued me. Were we expected to make a lengthy visit here, then?

Every minute or two, the woman settled her gaze on Cuthman, as if assessing him in some way. It made us both uneasy, and I shifted a little closer, with the faint idea of protecting him. In a while, she asked, ‘What age are you boy?' My lad looked to me to reply, which made him seem young and nervous.

‘He was born at Imbolc, fifteen or sixteen years ago. I cannot be certain which it is. The years needed no counting where we were.'

The woman pushed out her lips a little, thinking something through. ‘I have yet to hear him speak. Is his voice of a manly tone?'

The question was strange and rather awkward. I stared at her stupidly. Then I waved a hand at the lad. ‘Say something,' I invited him. ‘Let that be the answer.'

Turning red under his chapped skin, Cuthman stammered something, which was so low that little could be made of it. The woman sighed. ‘Sing for me, then,' she demanded, and I thought perhaps she wanted him for the music we had heard the night before. The monks we had stayed with made much of their holy music, and there had been singing in our village church. I relaxed a little, thinking that at last there was something here we could understand. But Cuthman had not the courage for a solo performance, and merely blushed more deeply than before.

‘No matter,' she dismissed him. ‘All will become clear in time.'

One of the old women coughed again and croaked, ‘She wants to know if he's ripe for breeding,' she said, loudly, reaching over to dig a horny fingertip into my ribs. ‘But she's too nice to say it right out.'

There was a still moment of pure shock. Cuthman's colour drained away, and he went rigid. An instinctive hand covered his cock, and the other tried to pull his clothes tight round himself. Then he began to scramble to his feet, looking round for an escape. But he remembered me, and a look of terrible helplessness crossed his face. He could do nothing in haste, because of his obligations to me.

‘Come, Mam,' he said, his voice tight. ‘We will not stay here.'

‘You will, though,' said the woman, and made a sudden crowing call,
Ay-ay-ayeeee
, rather like Wynn had called the heifer, when she wandered too far onto the moors.

Like blue ghosts, women appeared on all sides. Three came from the big hut; two from the same gap in the fence that we had entered by; and across towards the south ramparts I could see five more, strung out as they hurried down a slope to where we were. The woman called again, and I saw a door open in the high wall to the east, and a crowd of women and girls poured through as we watched. We made no attempt to move, not so much intimidated by the numbers, as by the strangeness of their instantaneous and silent approach. As if well practised, they formed a circle around us, and began to close in, until they were tightly shoulder-to-shoulder.

Enthia spoke to them in a language I did not understand, and indicated Cuthman. They listened carefully, a few of them smiling, others looking apprehensive. The latter were mostly the younger ones, girls scarcely into their bleeding years. The old woman's words, which had first moved us into this new situation, helped me to guess what was being said. It was both appalling and fascinating. I looked round at the circle of female faces, perhaps thirty of them, and tried to make sense of what I saw. There were many likenesses - four of them had the same hair to colour of autumn leaves, another four were all of the same short round shape. Never had I heard tell of a place where only women dwelt, yet I began to be sure that there were no men here. Another slow inspection showed me that not one of the women was with child. We had heard childish voices, but no crying babies. The land around this extraordinary place was oddly empty. No shepherd or hermit, no missions or hamlets, despite the fertility of the land and its signs of former dense occupancy. Either it was bewitched, casting a blight across the country, or it was an unsafe spot to live for other reasons.

I sighed, with a sense of resignation. Cuthman and I had wandered freely into this den of female lions. We had no choice now but to endure whatever fate they had in store for us. If they needed Cuthman for breeding, then so be it. There were worse fates that could befall a young man.

‘Do not resist,' I said to Cuthman, trying to give him a comforting pat. He stepped away from me as if I was merely another of these predatory women. ‘They will not hurt you. I think I see what their plan for you is.'

‘I am not theirs to make plans for,' he snarled, and I noticed, with a moment of amusement, that his voice was deep enough for any woman's reassurance. ‘I belong to the Lord, body and soul, and I am vowed to remain pure.'

This came as a new thought to me, despite my recent experience of Christian men. It was so far from nature, and so essentially ridiculous, that I had never associated it with my own son. Sexual coupling was impure in their eyes. Only with the binding permission of God, and the public promises of a marriage, was it tolerable. Yet here were heathen women in considerable numbers, all apparently expecting to make free with his maleness. I bit my lips against the flippant response I was tempted to give him.

I turned to the woman who was evidently the leader. ‘You will most certainly find this difficult,' I warned her. ‘Best to let us go.' I had been intending to add ‘quickly' to my words, but I recalled the promise of broth and cheese and was wise enough to desist. ‘Besides, it is ungodly,' I added, afraid that Cuthman might think me disloyal.

‘Take him to the temple,' the woman ordered, ignoring me entirely. Five or six of the women laid hands on my son, and although he turned and twisted, he did not kick or hit out at them. He had his eyes closed, and his lips moved. Praying, I realised, and believed that I had done well to warn the woman. There was little prospect of any new infants from my obdurate boy. He would see it as a test from God, just as Jesus was taken up the mountain and tempted by Satan. Indeed, I could see that there were unmistakable parallels in what was happening to him.

They took him away, leaving me and the two old woman. I called after Cuthman, ‘I cannot help you, son, but I will wait until they allow you to leave.'

‘Pray for me,' he shouted over his shoulder, and my heart jumped then, with fear and pride and excitement.

I did not see my son again that day. I felt bereft and unreal without him. I wanted to make sure of his safety, and yet I knew he had far more courage and strength than I did. He was also under the eye and hand of his God, and was therefore quite sure of being safe. He knew that whatever might befall him was God's intention. God would give him all the power and conviction he needed, while at the same time testing his determination. I told myself these things, over and over, as I was given food and warm wrappings and a soft bed of sweet hay.

I did not see Enthia again, either. Another woman of much the same age and stature came to be with me, and we talked together. She also had a strange accent, and was harder to understand because she spoke quickly. I asked her to give an account of the place and its significance.

‘It has long been called the Maiden Castle,' she told me, with a laugh. ‘Countless centuries before this it was occupied by many other folk as well as maidens, like any ordinary village. When you scratch the ground, or climb down into the ditches, there are old bones and pots and tools from long, long ago. It makes a natural home for people who love to be up high, in the fresh wind, with a view across the wide country.'

‘Then who fashioned the strange pathway up to the gate?'

She shrugged. ‘Those who wished to be safe here,' she replied. ‘We have tried to keep it clear, for its strangeness and beauty. But we have other ways to be safe now. And without men with swords and buckets of boiling pitch, there is little to prevent entry.'

I thought of myself and Cuthman creeping slowly and confusedly in, and nodded my agreement.

‘There is a temple?' I asked, nodding towards the eastern wall.

‘That is what is of greatest importance here now,' she said. ‘We have made the eastern part a holy place. Behind that wall, all belongs to the Goddess. Nothing is the same over there.'

‘May I see?'

She nodded briefly. ‘One day,' she said, and I realised that she would have to await instruction on that matter. Perhaps it depended upon the performance of my captive son.

As I had guessed, there were more signs of life and activity as the day wore on. Doors were pushed open on some of the sturdier huts and women emerged, stretching and quiet. They were mostly old and slow, and had taken no notice of Enthia's call to come and capture Cuthman. But a little after noon they stirred and began to make more noise. It was a grey day, clouds crouching heavily above us and a dampness on everything, although it didn't rain. The broth we had been promised several hours ago was gradually prepared, from roots and fat mutton strips, thickened with oatmeal. It seemed to me that the sun would have set before it would be ready to eat.