The View From the Cart (37 page)

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.

Cuthman's first sermon was magnificent, and I was reminded of Brand back in our home village, all those years ago. Perhaps Brand's memory was alive for Cuthman, too, for he was surely modelling himself on his storytelling uncle in many ways.

Torches were burning in brackets all around the church walls, and the door closed tight behind us. The unfinished roof had been covered with lengths of hessian, leaving only three or four gaps which gave us glimpses of the night sky above us.

I had supposed that the self-appointed priest would tell the simple story of the couple being turned away from the inn and given a rough lodging in the stable, where the Holy Child was born. Shepherds and wise men, choirs of angels and the Virgin Mother were all good elements for a story. But my son went far beyond that.

He had built himself a platform, three steps up, so everyone could see him. Additional torchlight showed him bright and clear. On the altar, which I had never seen before, he had laid a fine cloth and a wooden rood stood proudly in the centre.

‘People! Friends!' he began, raising his arms as if to embrace them all. ‘I am profoundly thankful to you for coming here on this cold dark evening. But I am even more thankful to God for directing you here, to this holy place. You will sanctify this new church with your presence and your prayers, and I honour you for it.'

Some muttering followed that, and uneasy glances. I had already sought out Fippa, and looked at her now, as she stood directly beneath one of the torches, illuminated almost as vividly as Cuthman was. She grinned and spat, and called ‘You presume much, my friend!'

‘We shall see,' he replied, and waited for silence.

‘This night, many hundreds of years ago, a Holy Child was born in a stable. He was poor and humble and without proper shelter, but a great Star shone in the sky above his birthplace and three Kings came to pay homage to him before he was a sennight old. His mother had travelled far, for the census that had been ordered, and she was not prepared for the arrival of her firstborn son. Imagine her bewilderment when these great Kings came to her lowly stable, bearing gifts and telling her she had given birth to the Son of God.

‘The Christ Child grew up, watched over by his loving mother and elderly father, who was a carpenter, like many of you. He became a man of the people, familiar with the trades and practices of his homeland, learning the ways of ordinary folk, but slowly beginning to preach among them, too, when he was sure that he was truly the Son of God.

‘For Jesus was a man, like you and me, at the same time as he was part of the Divine Spirit. He was God made flesh, and he never dies. He rose from the dead, at Eastertide, and he lives forever, in the souls of us all, and all around us.'

He paused then, breathless. I looked around, trying to assess the effect on the heathen Stone-worshippers. They knew, of course, that the Christian God was invisible and worked through men and women, concerned above all with their souls. Their own gods were very different. They lived in rivers and stones, in the sun and the soil. They brought good harvest and kept us free of disease and disaster. Fippa's strength lay in her understanding of the physical body, and the vital links it had with people's fears and daily lives. Cuthman dismissed all that as base and of lesser importance than the immortal soul and the duties we owed to the Lord God.

As he spoke, I found myself at the same time proud and embarrassed. I shrank into the shadows, watching and listening.

‘We are all born in sin,' Cuthman went on. ‘We live in darkness and ignorance, like animals, until we are awakened to God's glorious love. God has proved this love to us by sending his only son to live with us, and to tell us the Truth of Heaven and Hell and the way our duty lies. He has told us what we must do, and told it very clear.'

He stopped and pointed a finger at individuals around the church. ‘You and you and you,' he shouted. ‘You have heard the Word of God before, and have given it no heed. Now I am here to bring you a final chance to find redemption. You live in sin while you worship your stones and totems. The love of God is a wonderful thing. I bring you hope and joy and everlasting bliss. There is no reason for you to reject me and what I have for you. It would be madness to do so. I repeat, this is your final chance. If you turn away from the face of God now, you will be damned for all eternity. You will shiver in the lonely lost places of the damned. You will die and know nothing of the joys of heaven. Christ, who was born in the darkness of midwinter, brought a great light to the world. He brought life everlasting for all those who believe in Him.'

He paused and drew a deep breath. The flickering torches highlighted his face, in particular his long pale cheeks, which showed the bones and made his eyes glow dark and deep. He stood straight and tall, his hair long and fair. He made an attractive figure, and if he had only smiled into some of the listening faces, he might have swayed his congregation with the greatest of ease.

As it was, his serious manner, his loud hectoring, were at odds with his words. There was no visible sign of the bliss and joy that he spoke of. I let my thoughts drift, and could recall very few joyful moments in my life to that point. All that stood out in my mind was my time with Frith, when we were warm and excited, delighting in the discovery of each other. And there had been nothing Christian in our antics. I knew full well that any good Christian would have condemned our behaviour as sinful.

I thought of the settlement we had come into, with its lush green fields and rich forests. The sea brought food and beauty, and a sense of freedom. The Stone was a thing lovely in itself, and vibrant with power. There was peace and very little sickness amongst the people, who made music together, ate together, sharing the tasks. For the life of me, I would not have been able to convince them that the Christian doctrine had anything to contribute to the life they had.

But I knew, too, that Cuthman was convinced. He carried a lifelong certainty that his God was the only true Lord, and that in matters of the spirit he held all the power. I had seen his miracles, and would bear witness to his sincerity if asked to. And I had to accord him the respect and honour of giving my new child a Christian life.

The sermon ended with a flourish. ‘People! Friends! This church will be your salvation. When it is finished, there will be baptisms at the font that I shall provide. There will be marriages, and when any amongst you sickens and gives up the ghost, then I will bury that person in the holy ground on this hilltop. I will be here for you at every point in your lives, to guide and safeguard you. I will be your friend, your pastor, your spiritual guide.'

I glanced at Fippa. Her face was twisted with a strange mix of feelings. I could see that she was surprised at the force of Cuthman's words. There was shock in her eyes and her head tipped back, as if a wind had blown full in her face. But she knew she must keep her balance, in what was evidently the opening skirmish of a looming battle. Her mouth was fixed in a scornful grin, a sneer lifting one corner. Her hands were open, flapping a little as if to wave away the nonsense she had heard. A few people were looking from her to Cuthman and back, as if weighing up the relative force of the two of them.

The cold was beginning to penetrate the unfinished building, and some children began to grizzle. Cuthman knew when to let them go, although it was far short of midnight, which I had expected to be a part of his ceremonies. ‘This is a time of love,' he called. ‘This is the birth time of our Saviour. I wish you happiness and peace at this time. We have reached the moment of the Mass. But before we may celebrate and savour the blood and body of the Risen Christ, you must all be baptised. That is our next appointment, and tonight is not the time. For now go and give thought to all that I have told you.'

He left his platform, and strode through the crowd, patting shoulders and nodding at one or two individuals. He threw open the great door, and led the crowd out into the night. They moved slowly, muttering amongst themselves, and I followed them, hoping to escape my son's notice.

‘Mother!' he called after me. ‘We have business to arrange, have we not?'

I turned back, saying nothing. He went on. ‘Bring your espoused, who I note has not come to hear me on this holy night – ‘

‘He is unwell, with head pain,' I interrupted eagerly. It was true that Frith had felt sick throughout the day, but I took it to be his gentle way of refusing to enter Cuthman's church before the marriage.

‘No matter,' Cuthman nodded. ‘If he be fit for it, bring him here the day after tomorrow, at mid-day and we will conduct the nuptials. Any that wish to witness the event may attend. I leave it to you to spread the word.'

I nodded, wishing I could find gratitude in my heart, or pleasure at the prospect. But I was cold and wary, bemused by the sermon he had just delivered. And I was unable to trust him to do as he promised. All I could do was turn to the church and say, ‘A fine thing you have made, my son. It makes me proud.'

He said nothing, but gave a cold smile. ‘It is what I was sent here to do,' he murmured.

I trudged down the hill, my belly making it awkward to balance. In the past month, I had grown alarmingly, so that I needed to hold my clothes together for warmth. My legs became puffed out, and I could hold only small quantities of food before feeling sated. At night I was forced to lie on my side, which did not suit me. The hillside became steeper than ever before, and the sharp cold made the ground like stone, so that my feet were bruised on the hard sods of earth.

Next day was uneasy. It was a high Christian festival, which the people had almost unwittingly celebrated by attending my son's sermon. They went about their daily tasks almost furtively, assisted in a way by the bitter east wind which cut through wrappings to bite at fingers and toes and bring tears to the eyes. Fires burned in every hut, from early in the day, and the people only came outside for more fuel, or to see to their beasts. There was a strange light that day, a white-grey which highlighted the stark bare branches of the trees, and was the very colour of frost and bitter cold.

I stayed with Frith in our small hut, moving as little as possible, and speaking seriously with him. He was quiet and melancholy and I was sorry for it. When the child inside me jumped, I took his hand and made him feel it for himself. He seemed old and weary, unsure of himself.

‘The marriage will make no difference,' I sought to convince him. ‘It confers a blessing on the child we have made, and allows us to promise to remain together.'

He shook his head, the wiry hair showing white amongst the grey, like frosting. ‘I think not,' he said, with a sigh. ‘I think we are the bone between two dogs, and can only suffer for it.'

‘How can that be? We will take the blessing, seal the union with a kiss, and return to how we are now.'

‘‘And your son? Will he not use us, then, as a lever to shift the people from the Stone? And will Fippa allow that? He moves too fast for her. She did not expect this.'

‘And yet she spoke of it to us at Lammas, four or five moons ago. And she allowed Garth and Welf to help my son. Without them, the church would be far from completion.'

‘And perhaps she regrets doing so.'

There was more of the sort, but I paid it less attention than at first. I dozed perhaps, or drifted into a waking dream about the child to come and how I had been granted a miracle of my own in this late blooming. Or perhaps there was a tightening across my belly which took my mind away from religious struggles and made me wonder for a moment whether the child would come early and be far too small to survive.

We had our marriage. Cuthman was exultant as we climbed the hill, bringing a crowd of twenty or so behind us. And yet he fumbled his words and faltered from the outset. I did not understand for some time that he had never witnessed a marriage before, Christian or otherwise, and had only the most scanty idea from his talks in the Chidham monastery of what needed to be done.

Fippa did not attend, but her sons did. They stood beside Frith, and guffawed at him when he kissed me. Cuthman pronounced us a wedded couple in the eyes of God, with obvious relief, and then gave his second sermon as priest of the settlement. It was shorter but bolder than the first.

‘Friends, we see here a loving couple, united by the Lord God, so that their child might be a true Christian. By coming here in this way, they ask the Lord to recognise their union and to take care of their immortal souls in the dark days to come.'

I shivered a little at that. Did he refer merely to the winter season, or to the birth of the child, or something more?

‘It is as I said on Christ's Mass Eve. I will be here to bless and sanctify all your great moments, as I have just done, and in so doing, I bring you to the Lord and all his great gifts.'

Then he looked directly at Frith, as if on a sudden afterthought. ‘Frith, my friend, you must be baptised. As there is not yet a font for the holy water, we must do as Christ Himself did, and take you to the river. Until that is done, my mother will be wedded to a heathen, and I cannot think that God would approve such a state of affairs.'

‘But – ‘ I protested. ‘The cold! The river is too cold.'

Frith nudged me a little and spoke up for himself. ‘It strikes me that such a solemn event needs preparation,' he said in his quiet peaceable way. ‘If I am to swear faith in your God and to live by his commands, I should know more than I do. If not, then such a promise is empty. I would not know what I vowed myself to.'

Cuthman was impressed by this, and rubbed his chin whilst giving it some thought. I took Frith's warm hand and held it tight. We were man and wife now, and I had a new place in the world accordingly. My belly roiled with the movement within, and I allowed myself to envisage the little family that I would soon create, an echo of the one I had known on the moors, but far, far better. I felt a pang at my betrayal of Edd and the strange outcast pair we had been, but shrugged it away. That had been half a lifetime ago and the world changed whether we wished it to or not.