The View From the Cart (41 page)

By the time my babies were a year old, Steyning was a firmly Christian community. We enjoyed an enforced Sabbath, where no work of any kind was permitted, apart from drawing milk from the goats. Everyone had been baptised in the river Adur, blessed by Cuthman, and promising faithfulness to the Lord and his Holy Son. A burial ground lay to the south and west of the church, with two or three new graves each year. Beyond the graves, in an untouched field where the grass was long and rank and brambles, nettles and small saplings quickly grew, Fippa's pool lay dark and sinister. No-one ever went there. It became a place of ghost stories and terror. Children were warned to stay away, with dreadful threats of what would happen to them if they ventured close to the Pool. Cuthman planted a row of yews to screen it from his sight, and although they grew slowly, they marked a barrier which seemed to be important to him.

But still the new church had not been affirmed by any Christian clerics. No bishop had come to consecrate it; no choirs to sing it into life or bring it to God's attention. Cuthman was a solitary self-styled priest, whose only authority lay in his own mind and in the wonders he had so publicly performed. No-one in Steyning could read or write. Cuthman had grown up in solitude, and the holy stories he had heard were either repeated to him by Edd and me from our own early days, or acquired in the brief visits we had made to monasteries on our travels. The miracle of the loaves and fishes, and the walking on the water were much-used standbys, and were known to the very last word by every villager.

My own position was never entirely comfortable. Frith and I did our best to appear as ordinary members of the community, working alongside the others and sharing their hopes and plans. But it was never a success. I had always been inclined to avoid the common throng. I was content to chatter to one or two women, or to talk with Frith, but in a larger group I never felt at ease. I did not like to be the centre of attention, but neither did I enjoy being ignored. As Cuthman's mother, I was treated with some caution. As the mother of twins, I was special and strange. Only as Frith's wife was I accepted. It was by accident that I acquired a reputation of my own, which brought me both danger and approval.

I still had my little bag of runes, and I would habitually consult them on the eve of every Sabbath, almost idly, hoping to discover a direction or theme to the coming week. Almost invariably it was a reliably accurate prediction. I had always kept my runes secret from Cuthman, but I made no effort to conceal them from Frith. He regarded it as a quite ordinary practice and would enquire with mild interest as to the outcome. If it was especially acute, he would perhaps mention it to one or other villager during the week.

Very slowly, one by one, people would come and ask me to cast a rune for them. In the course of two or three years, I suppose I was consulted by almost everyone. With practice, I began to read more into each sign, sometimes varying what I foretold according to ideas which came to me as I handled the stones. One day, I devised a way of throwing three stones for a reading, instead of one. Hesitantly I found I could give a richer picture, with advice on action and warnings of danger areas, using this new system.

One day, Canti, the childless woman from Cuthman's earliest instructional groups, laughingly said, ‘You're like another Fippa.'

A chill rippled through me, clutching at my heart. I looked around me nervously, fearful that Cuthman might be within earshot.

‘Don't say that,' I breathed. ‘I would not wish to suffer a fate like hers.'

‘Indeed, no,' she agreed. ‘I only meant you have a gift of the Sight. It can be God's gift, surely? No-one could ever doubt your faithfulness to the Lord.'

I
doubted it, I thought silently. My faith in the Lord had never been a fully authentic thing. Cuthman had not baptised me, since I had been a Christian from infancy. I knew the prayers to say, and the doctrine of eternal life for those who professed to live in God's ways. But I had seen other ways, rich with a passion and a truth that I had not seen amongst Christians. I had arrived at my own explanation for my life's experience, neat and comforting, which I offered now to Canti.

‘It has always seemed to me that the Christian doctrine has more in it for men than for women,' I said. ‘I have never felt truly sure than God or his Blessed Son understands what it is to be a woman.'

She laughed a little at this, and nodded. ‘I believe you might be right,' she said. ‘Now read me my runes, if you will.'

When the twins were very small, I drew a rune for each of them, in a solemn rite performed the night before their baptism. Brock, as the firstborn, was given priority. For him I drew the rune of Joy, but reversed. A message of trials and troubles, where the goal is always in sight, but seldom attained. Aware of the sorrows of others, capable of great sympathy, truly felt. A life of slow and arduous progress, doing no harm, but bringing consolation and understand to others.

I spent an hour meditating on this, the sleeping child by my side. His hair had lightened in colour, and his face had grown long. He was still small for his age, and patient by nature. His sister would push and slap him, edging him away from the unity she sought with me. She seemed careless of his tears, though he seldom cried. His large eyes, a greenish-brown in colour, watched all that took place. He was a sweet easy infant, devoted to his father, who believed that this late son was the greatest gift he could have been given.

Finally I turned to my little bag again, and dipped my hand in, shaking it a little. The rule was to draw forth the first piece my fingers touched, so that I could not be influenced by the slightly different shapes in the broken shards. I pulled it forth, and laid it down on the floor beside me.

It was the blank rune. The Unknowable, which can mean Death. It can also show a great potential, everything being possible. It was what I had felt about Brigid since she was born, without being aware of it. My last child, my last chance to enjoy and justify my maternity. Her fierce love for me had continued, and she would cling tightly to me, pushing Brock away. But it was inevitable that I would die while she was yet young. Perhaps that was the Death marked in her destiny. Perhaps she would need that death to take place before she could be free to make her own way through life. I tucked away my pouch and tried to settle down to sleep.

One day, in the small lull before midsummer when the crops are growing and the cattle fattening, and there is relief from the shortages of winter and early spring, a group of three men came walking over the same south-western hill that most of our visitors used. They paused, three small figures against the sky, looking down at us. It was a perfect day, warm breezes blowing from the sea, the sky blue and everything fresh and new. Brock pointed excitedly, and began to run to meet the newcomers. He was seven years old.

We all paused, and waited for the men to draw closer. It was soon clear that they wore the simple garb of monks and although this suggested no threat or evil tidings, almost unknowingly, we clustered together, wondering what this visit might portend. I had drawn the rune of the Horse for that week – restlessness, pride, adventure and far-off places. I knew this would connect in some way to these men.

Cuthman, forever a lurking watchful figure on his hilltop, sensitive to anything unusual, came quickly down to join us as we waited. He had never again failed to be the first to greet visitors since that first day when the King's messenger came and Fippa had claimed to speak for the settlement.

We had grown more numerous in the past few years, new children being born and occasional wanderers joining us from other tribes. Fishermen and sea voyagers used our harbour increasingly, and half-lived amongst us in the winter months. Our huts were sturdier, our compounds bigger.

The three men approached at a good speed. To the fore was a tall youth, fair-headed and slim. Only when he came close and looked me full in the face with a broad smile, did I see who he was. ‘Hal!' I cried. ‘Is it you? Really you? Oh, my word, how handsome you are.'

He threw his arms round me, as if there had not been eight long years since we last met. The little boy had disappeared completely, but the open smile and light blue eyes betrayed him as the same lad. ‘You remember me,' he laughed. ‘I never thought you would.'

I pushed him away, to look into his face again. ‘I loved you, Hal. It was a terrible sadness to leave you as we did. But you have been well, I see. And still living with the Brothers.'

‘Of course. Nothing has changed. We have heard word of Cuthman's Port, here, and considered that we should come and see it for ourselves. It is a splendid little world you have here, and the church!' He raised his eyes to the knoll, and briefly crossed himself. ‘The heathen have been converted then?'

Cuthman came forward, seeming so stern and somehow old before his time next to Hal's freshness. ‘All has been as the Lord promised,' he said gravely. ‘It is good to see you again, my friend. I should be glad to hear news from Chidham.'

‘News!' cried Hal with another cheerful laugh. ‘There is never any news at Chidham. Except that we keep your shrine in good order and make much of your miracle in the hayfield. And I have heard whispers of other miraculous events here, in times gone by. I come to make a full record of them and to visit your church, if I may.'

‘Shrine?' Cuthman repeated, his voice a little faint. We had never dreamed of such a thing as a shrine to a man who was yet alive and in a place which had little connection to him.

‘It was my promise to you,' Hal reminded him. ‘To keep your memory alive, and to live with the brothers as your representative.'

Cuthman frowned deeply, in the effort to remember back so long. I was unsure whether he truly recalled Hal himself in any detail, although the weeks we had spent at Chidham had been a vital part of his instruction in Christian doctrine. He seemed uneasy at the sudden reminder of that time. Hal's buoyant enthusiasm was plainly irritating, too. It was Brock who eased the prickly atmosphere.

‘Do you know my brother?' he chirped, looking up at Hal. ‘He is a great man, the village priest. I am his servant now, and soon I shall be confirmed. Is that not so?' he turned to Cuthman for affirmation and earned an approving hand on his shoulder. Cuthman had early claimed Brock as his own, much to Frith's distress. But Frith was ageing quickly by this time and spent his days sitting in the sunshine, whittling sticks.

I saw the idea enter Hal's head, and shivered. To be favoured by the permanent presence of the Saint's young brother would be a great asset. Brock's spontaneous friendliness had perhaps sealed his own fate. Perhaps the best that I could hope for would be that he would become a go-between, travelling to and fro between Steyning and Chidham, when he grew a little older.

The villagers were slow to grasp just who this new arrival might be. His two companions had begun to walk amongst them, paying attention to the children and anyone who was obviously sick. They admired the beauty of the setting, the lushness of the pasture. They asked about the King's tribute and the usefulness of the harbour.

That evening, the visitors ate with us and Hal sat with Cuthman, conversing earnestly about the church and the life of a solitary priest. I sat aside, with Frith, and tried to tell him of my fears concerning Brock. It seemed too cruel. Although Cuthman had taken the child as his altar boy and helper, Brock still slept with us in the hut and ate with us. His lively chatter was always a delight, and his acute remarks on the villagers and their behaviour caused us much merriment. We were proud of our quicksilver little son and to lose him would take the light from our days.

But I had long since formed the habit of telling Frith my thoughts and there was no reason to change now. I began slowly. ‘Hal was only a little older than Brock is now, when I knew him. He had run away from the rough people he was with. He and Cuthman seemed like brothers, from the first. They both had God's special blessing on them. It must have been God who brought him to us when Cuthman was sick, and we had need of help.'

Frith chewed his meat and cocked an ear to hear me better. His eyes were on Brock, as always.

‘When we reached Chidham – you remember my telling you about that? – Hal remained behind. He was witness to the miracle in the hayfield, and promised to keep the memory of Cuthman alive there. Strange, now I think of it, that it has been so long before he came to see us.'

‘He will take Brock from us, then?' Frith said, flatly, cutting across my careful preamble.

‘I think he will,' I nodded, tears springing up at the thought.

‘And he will be Brock no more. They will speak of him as Godfrey and he will be one of the great Cuthman sect.' Anger shook his voice, and I was sorry at the upheaval I had brought to his life. Sorry, in many ways, that my cart had ever come to rest in Steyning, which had shown no sign of needing what we brought with us.

Hal stayed a fortnight, talking every morning with Cuthman, sharing in the priestly duties, and subtly correcting some of the more gross deviations in practice. In the afternoons, he came down the hill and sat with me and the children, while we prepared carrots or peas, or felted our fleece, or ground our corn. Sometimes he would take a knife and bowl and work with us. Other times, he simply sat with his long pale hands clasped between his knees, the coarse cloth of his garments rasping his skin.

‘I can write now,' he told me. ‘I am writing a life of Cuthman. I have come here for many reasons, but one is to ask you to give me the story of his early life, and the miracles he performed before I met him. Opinion may vary as to his greatest feat, but many will opine that it was the long journey pushing you in your barrow, so many long miles. Does the barrow exist still?'

It did, somewhat to my shame. Cuthman had preserved it, with infinite care, and had erected a small shelter for it, to the north of the church, in a corner of the burial ground. It came close to being a modest shrine in itself, although very few ever paid it any notice. The grass grew long around it, but Cuthman cleared away cobwebs and birds' nests and dry leaves, for reasons I did not fully comprehend.