The View From the Cart (32 page)

‘Hush,' came his shaking voice. ‘Tis only a stupid bird.' But I knew he believed me, and had lost the certainty of the morning. Ahead was a reedy marsh, with narrow cattle paths threaded through it. We could not see our way more than a few paces together, and the barrow lurched and stuck again and again. We had crossed over from a favoured land, where the sun sparkled and the people lived peacefully, into a place of evil. But we both knew that we could not go back. This way lay our destiny, and still I trusted my son to find it.

We climbed away from the marsh, slowly, until we had crested the hill, and to the north could overlook a vast panorama of forest and river and settlements, which felt like the whole world laid out before us. ‘Like our Lord Jesus Christ in the wilderness,' Cuthman breathed, and came to stand by me, where I could see his face. There was a glow on him, excitement and a grandeur which echoed his words. The shepherd boy was comparing himself with God's Son, and not for the first time I trembled at his conceit. And yet, had it not been justified already, over and over? When he was in trouble, his God saved him. My son had a call on the elements, with the powers of a sorcerer, and afraid as I often was, I felt glad he had chosen to use it for a single plan, and not for his own wealth or power.

Or so I believed. Cuthman had spoken of building a church and spreading the Christian faith. The picture in my mind was of something comfortable and loving, settled and secure. I had allowed myself to forget the struggles I had seen between people of different faiths. I had seen my son call lightning onto the women of Maiden Castle, and drenching humiliation on the people who had planned to sacrifice him. He could not endure mockery, and would punish those who would not take him seriously.

‘Come, then,' he said, and took up the worn handles of my cart. The sun was past its high point, and our shadows fell before us, short at first, but lengthening as we travelled. To the south, the wide ocean glittered, and we kept to the crest of the hill, following a path worn by sheep and their keepers, passing a great and ancient fortress, no longer inhabited or defended, although there were signs of fires and burials from not too long before. ‘It will be used again,' said Cuthman, dreamily, as if glimpsing the future. ‘The battles for this land are not yet done.'

Battles were distant and foolish events, to my thinking. They left their miserable legacies, in the mourning mothers, and fearful changes when a new King sought to make his mark on the people. But life persisted, with disease and hunger, birth and death, the harvests and the festivals, and the struggles were forgotten so much sooner than the dying soldiers could have imagined. Lost in such thoughts, admiring the beauty of the rolling land around us, with rivers and standing water and dense forest stretching northwards, I was slow to notice that we had stopped. The ground fell away below us, to a great sea inlet, a cluster of huts around a wharf and a stretch of cultivated land behind them. Orchards, bright grassland, cattle, sheep and fowls.

‘There!' Cuthman crowed, his arm outstretched. ‘That is the place.'

It should have excited me, given me a thrill of pleasure and relief. The place had great beauty, and evident prosperity. There was a motley group of boats tied up at the wharf, and I could make out movement as an oxcart carried goods along the coast to the south. I had a vision of Cuthman, pushing his helpless mother in a battered barrow, descending the hill into this contented settlement and changing it forever. The people who saw us now, arriving from out of the sky, the setting sun behind us, would never forget the moment. The story would be told down the generations of how the great Saint Cuthman appeared one summer evening and chose their little hamlet for his work. For I could not doubt that these people were at my son's mercy, and that his work amongst them would be a great thing. I was less sure that in their place I would have welcomed him.

As it happened, the whole community became aware of us, that very evening. As we approached, we could see and hear a collection of people dancing to drumming and piping, in a cleared area a little to the north of the dwellings. They reminded me so powerfully of our previous encounter with dancing villagers that I trembled. Instead of a May Pole in their midst, these people had a great standing stone, as tall as three men standing on each other's shoulders. It was painted with symbols, and a variety of objects lay at its base - gifts, no doubt, to the god of the stone.

‘Pagans!' breathed Cuthman, as if this was his greatest hope. ‘Stone-worshippers. Lord God, hear me. Before I die, that stone shall be carved into Your Holy Cross, and will stand close by the door of Your Holy Church. All these people will be baptised in the font that I shall make, and fill with Your Holy Water. This is my solemn vow, made before You.'

He left me, then, the cart at such an angle that I had to cling tight to prevent an ungainly slide onto the ground, and strode towards the people. In his tattered tunic, feet bare, hair long and matted, a wispy boyish beard on his chin, he presented a strange figure, more like a crazed hermit than a God-sent missionary. Then, breaking from the circle of people, came an even stranger form. Strange and yet powerfully familiar. A short woman with a head larger than it should have been. Grey wispy hair formed a halo, further enlarging her head. She walked fast, meeting him at a point not too distant from my cart. Being so near-sighted, I could see no detail until she came closer.

Fear made me crouch in the tipped-up barrow, hoping to go unnoticed. Cuthman dwindled in my sight as he faced the woman and recognised her as I had already done. Dark skin, broken blackened teeth, and a great wen, the size of a finger joint, on the bridge of her nose – all slowly came into focus. It was the woman we had seen in the hermit's pool, and who had visited my dreams from that day on. She had seemed to us powerful then. Now she was more than powerful, more than just another pagan witch leading her people in the adoration of a stone. She was a
force,
like the wind or the thunder, and I knew in that moment that Cuthman was at war with her. A war that could only end with the destruction of one or other of the adversaries.

But there are many ways of knowing. Nothing was said of battles or killings. The woman looked towards me, and said, in a deep ringing voice, ‘Bring your relative out of her discomfort, boy. Have you no respect?'

And Cuthman did her bidding. He came back to me, and lifted me clear of the barrow. He set me on my feet, and straightened my skirts. My stiff back would not allow me to stand fully upright, but I did my best, resisting the temptation to withdraw and let Cuthman deal with whatever came at us. It was a moment of great magnitude, and I wished to do it justice. And I did not wish to forego what might happen next and thus find myself dismissed as being of no further importance. This place would be our home henceforward, and Cuthman would cease to be a wandering mendicant, pushing his mother in a barrow for penance. If the mother did not take care, she would find herself forgotten in the new period of Cuthman's life.

It seemed, however, that the woman was equally resolved on my place in events. She continued her rapid walk until she was facing me. She was so short that even in my bent state, our faces were on a level. She stared into my eyes, probing wordlessly for my soul. A confusion of feelings roiled within me. Fear of her power, distaste at her ugliness, outrage at her intrusion. But also a reverence for something which caught me deep inside myself. Woman to woman, we stared, and I could smell the tang of birth fluids, the awful sick sweetness of death and the hot life-giving savours of roasting meat, all coming from her together. I could hear the steady beat of her heart, as an unborn child must hear its mother's throbbing pulse.

‘Mother!' Cuthman spoke sharply, close by my shoulder, bringing me to the present world again. I looked at him, blank and lost.

‘Your mother has travelled far,' crooned the woman, laying a hard calloused hand on mine. ‘It cannot have been comfortable riding in such a vehicle.' She cast a sneering glance at the barrow, tainting much of what I had imagined I felt about our journeyings.

‘We were forced to it,' said Cuthman, in a young voice, anxious to explain himself.

‘So you might think,' she shrugged, bobbing her heavy head. ‘I have no time for all that now. As you see, we have our ceremony to attend to. You can join us,' she invited, showing broken teeth in a broad grin.

‘We have learned to be wary of such ceremonies,' I said, laughing a little. My fear was fast ebbing away, to be replaced by a rising excitement at what lay before us in this village. I could feel a new life beginning for me, where I might no longer need to rely on my son. Already our long walk seemed like a dream, fading fast behind me. We had arrived now, and I was eager to make real the idea of ‘Home', in this lovely place. I let the woman leave us, with a little wave of understanding exchanged between the two of us.

Cuthman sensed my betrayal. ‘Mother!' he said again. ‘There is no amusement to be found in all this. These people are heathen, and I am here to do the Lord's work amongst them. It will be a hard struggle, with that -
sorceress
- poisoning all the people's minds. I command you to keep away from her. She will entice you into an evil friendship which you would come to most deeply regret.'

‘You may be right,' I assured him, easily. ‘But before you begin your work of conversion, might we find a place to live? There is space enough for a good new hut, and it may be that if you make no mention of the Lord until we have lived here a time, we can become accepted by the people.'

‘I must build my church in the summer months that remain to us. Our own home must be a makeshift thing until the work is done.'

‘Are you so confident that the villagers will permit you to bring a church here? They seem contented as they are.'

‘They need have nothing to fear,' he said, his gaze falling on the dancing crowd. In unison they all raised their arms to the great standing stone and shouted out some indistinct words. ‘Nothing but the damnation and soul-sickness that comes from such practice as that.'

Desperately, I clung to my good cheer at having ceased our wanderings. It was a struggle to subdue the sensations of alarm at the divisions I already saw ahead of me. Cuthman would force me to make my choice between him and the village woman, who I fancied stood in a position of authority over her community. I would find myself caught between his invisible Lord God in the heavens and the throbbing realities of the gods who inhabited the stones and the fields and the glittering seas of this place. Everything that I had heard and seen and done in my life had been leading me to this day and from them to all those remaining days of my life. The loneliness and helplessness of the cart came back to me. The worst times had been those long days and weeks of jolting over rough ground, forming a comical tableau for all who encountered us, going short of food and sleeping in the cold and damp. The best times had been when we ran amongst other people - the women of Maiden Castle, for all their madness, had been good to listen to and laugh amongst. The brief glimpses we had had of monasteries and abbeys, the settled, ordered life with a role for all and a steady purpose, had attracted me, although they were ruled by men and the matters in life which men find important. Had I changed so greatly, then, I wondered. Where was the young wife, content to settle on the empty moor with only a single man and a pair of dogs for company? That old version of myself had vanished, leaving a very different woman in her place. Now, I discovered, I wanted to be amongst the noise and merriment of people like these coast-dwelling Saxons. If my son had intended to found a monastery here, I might have been content to act as his servant, and to follow the precepts of his man-centred doctrines.

But his plan was to erect a church, where the people must come to worship and be baptised. He would become the priest, for all his lack of learning, and would address his flock, just as Christ Jesus had done. If they refused to listen to him, if they left his church empty and forgotten, what then would become of me?

‘Come, then,' he said, taking my arm. ‘We must choose the position, before darkness falls.' He walked me down a gentle slope, to where a well-trod path ran. We crossed the path and turned left to follow a grassy bank which rose in front of us. The land lay in folds to the north, rising and falling, crossed by pathways and small streamlets feeding the great river that ran down to the sea. Close by there stood a woodland of stout oaks, beeches and elms that climbed steadily to the higher ground. There would be no shortage of timber for the building Cuthman planned.

Just as the light faded, he announced his decision. A knoll, sloping sharply away to the west and north, with a pond standing at its foot to the west, seemed to invite a building. I was reminded of many a fort or ruined villa on just such a spot, seen during our travels. Indeed, I felt a mild surprise that nothing had so far been situated there.

‘I claim this spot,' Cuthman announced, to the empty air. ‘Here there will be a Holy Church. And here we will remain this night.'

I looked around. The only shelter was a small knot of thorn trees, near the top of the knoll. Sighing, I reconciled myself to another night in the open, crouched like an animal on the hard cold earth.

‘We have not eaten this day,' I reminded him.

Impatient, he waved this aside. If he could have his way, he would wave away the night, too, so as to make a start on his scheme. What mattered food at such a great moment?

It seemed that our first day in our new home was of mixed quality. After my relief and excitement, this lack of ceremony in our sleeping place was sorely disappointing. With considerable vexation, I tried to prepare myself for the night to come.

‘What?' came a voice, deep and gurgling with suppressed laughter. ‘Is this how our great Saviour treats his parent?'