Moyra Caldecott (9 page)

One of the distractions was Heregyth, who had become pregnant and was delivered of a still-born child. The young ceorl’s son who had fathered it had heartlessly gone off and married someone else and Etheldreda felt impelled to nurse her wayward friend through the dark days of illness and sorrow, sitting at her bedside with her needlework, telling her stories of her time in France and how efficiently the monastery, which seemed more like a city than a house, was run. Heregyth turned her face to the wall and sighed as Etheldreda spoke of organisation and rules, but turned back to listen when she spoke of miraculous cures, premonitions and prophetic dreams.

Then, in early September, messengers from Deira brought black news. Etheldreda arrived back one evening from an invigorating gallop through Rendilsham woods to find her father’s house in deep gloom. People stood about in knots, either silently, or talking in undertones. Although the shadows were deepening rapidly, very few lamps and torches had been lit. The king himself was slumped in his chair, his chin in his hand, scowling into the darkness. At her entrance all eyes turned to her and one by one those around her father drew back so that she could be alone with him. She flung herself on her knees beside him and took his hands in hers.

‘Father… my lord… What is it? What has happened?’ She had not seen him look so old and so tired since the death of her mother.

‘King Oswin is dead, my child,’ he said gently, knowing no other way to deliver the blow.

She drew her breath in sharply, her heart missing a beat.

‘It is God’s Will,’ he added.

She looked at him as though he were mad.

‘God’s Will,’ she repeated dully, and then, with great bitterness: ‘God’s Will?’

‘Yes, my child. We are all in the palm of God’s hand and our going and our coming is as He wills.’

Her face had a terrible blankness. It seemed to her that everything in the world had suddenly come to a stop. The one man she could have…

‘It is a bad business my daughter. The worst.’

‘Tell me,’ she said, forcing the words out.

‘Oswy has had his eye on Deira for some time, wanting to unite the two countries under one king as his brother Oswald did. But Oswin wouldn’t see it, though he was warned. Finally, too late, he was persuaded to raise an army.’ King Anna paused with a heavy sigh and Etheldreda did not remove her gaze from his face for an instant. She sensed that he was going to tell her something that was worse than war and death in battle.

‘They didn’t meet in battle,’ the King’s voice broke. ‘When Oswin realised his own force was inadequate to fight Oswy, he disbanded it rather than cause fruitless bloodshed, and he himself sought sanctuary with his greatest friend, a nobleman called Hanwald.’ Here Anna’s face twisted with bitterness. ‘Hanwald! May his name be cursed from now to eternity! He betrayed his guest and friend, his king, his benefactor, to Oswy’s murderer!’

A kind of keening came from the women in the court, angry murmuring and the sound of boots drumming on the floor, from the men.

‘Why? Why did he do it?’ Etheldreda cried out, leaving the shelter of silence at last, her heart breaking. ‘King Oswin would not have hurt a living soul!’

King Anna bowed his head. He knew that Oswin’s death and the manner of it was inexcusable.

Etheldreda stood up suddenly and walked from the hall. She could not bear to be with people any more. Everywhere she looked she saw the young king’s eyes as he looked into her own.

Once in her chamber she sat for a long time on the edge of her bed staring into darkness, not even lighting the lamp.

Through the dark square of her window a single brilliant star shone down on her, a bright needle of light, drilling into her head.

‘God’s Will!’

Her father’s words repeated themselves again and again to her.

‘God’s Will!’

She tried to accept it. Tried to remember all the rich and beautiful arguments she had heard over the years from Bishop Felix and her teachers at school. Tried to remember her mother’s teaching, her vows at baptism, all the years of acceptance.

The new religion was the only one she had known and so she did not turn, as the older generation sometimes did, to the old gods, in times of trouble, but to a terrible negative.

What if there was no God at all, but just blind events in a pointless, purposeless world? What was the point of trying to be as good and kind and just as Oswin was if God gave you no defence against your enemies? She could neither sleep nor weep. She sat all night and stared into the darkness. She had never felt so alone, so despairing. She tried to pray, but for the first time in her life she doubted that anyone was there to hear her prayer.

The dawn came and she was still sitting bolt upright on the edge of her bed. She heard a commotion at her door and Heregyth’s voice demanding to be allowed in.

She drew the bolt aside and opened the door. Several women were outside and she looked into the faces of those she had known since early childhood, and saw that they were strangers.

A veil had come between them, and the veil was her passion and her despair.

Her dark mood lasted several days and no one could talk her out of it. She avoided everyone, even Heregyth, going for long walks by herself in the woods, but finding even there that she was utterly alone.

One day Ovin, who had been watching her from a distance, ventured to join her as she walked alone in the wood. She looked up at him when he arrived, neither asking him to stay nor telling him to leave, and he paced beside her silently, his comforting bulk like her own shadow, causing no distress and no disturbance.

The next day he did the same.

On the third day she flung herself into his arms and wept. He held her like a father holds a child, though his heart was near to breaking.

At last she looked up at him.

‘What is the meaning of it, Ovin?’ she asked. ‘What is the meaning?’

He did not know what to answer.

‘I loved him, Ovin,’ Etheldreda suddenly said. ‘I loved him.’

Ovin stood before her, his shoulders hunched, his arms hanging by his side, her tears still wet upon his neck.

‘Can you understand? I saw him only once but I felt I had known him all my life… longer than my life. Do you understand that?’

Ovin nodded dumbly.

‘And now I wonder what was the point of our meeting. Is God cruel, Ovin? Or is there, perhaps, no God?’

‘I think, my lady,’ the young Celt struggled to express something that was so deep within him it almost hurt to drag it to the surface, ‘I think God’s love brought us into being, and it is only our love of God that keeps us in being.’

‘God’s love?’ Etheldreda frowned. She felt she had been admonished. It was hard for her to think of God’s love at this moment.

He flushed and turned away. He had accepted Christianity when he accepted his freedom. It ‘felt’ right to him, though he was not used to putting into words those secret and private insights that had been coming to him.

They said nothing more as they walked back together through the woods. The great trees rose around them, rooted in the earth, reaching to heaven.

That night when she went to her chamber she asked herself again and again what the words ‘God’s love’ could possibly mean. And then a verse from Jeremiah often quoted by Bishop Felix came to her mind.

‘You will seek me and find me,
when you seek me with all your heart
.’
[6]

She knelt to pray and there was a quietness in her heart that had not been there before. Into this, words welled up from some deep source she had forgotten.

‘Help me, O Lord. I believe. Help thou my unbelief.’
[7]

In the morning when she arose there were more messengers from the north. Bishop Aidan had died within a few days of his friend Oswin, some said from a broken heart, and there were stories that a young shepherd called Cuthbert, watching his sheep on the high moors, had seen a vision of his death.

‘It’s said that he suddenly saw a beam of dazzling light shining across the sky, coming from the direction of Bamburgh.’

Etheldreda joined the group that crowded round the traveller, and the people drew respectfully back to let her approach closer.

‘In the beam of light he could make out the transparent forms of shining beings rising upwards and bearing between them a sphere of flame. They carried it with great care as though it were very precious, and within it he could quite clearly see the soul of a man, untouched by the flame, protected by it.’
[8]

Those who were listening gasped.

‘How did he know that it was a soul?’ someone asked.

‘What did it look like?’ another cried.

‘I haven’t heard what it looked like, but he knew it was a soul because the next day when he told his story, he learned that at the very moment he had seen the vision, Bishop Aidan had died in Bamburgh.’

Etheldreda moved away.

Coming as it did at the moment when her heart was seeking confirmation for her beliefs, the story moved her deeply. She herself had sensed things from the invisible realms, felt the presence of angels, had moments when she knew things that could not be explained to others. How could she have forgotten all this? Suddenly the dark doubts of the past days disappeared and she was filled with a tremendous certainty.

‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways.’
[9]

She had been expecting God to be like the people she knew.

She went at once, alone, to the little wooden chapel that served the court of Rendilsham, knelt before the cross on the altar and opened her heart in prayer.

‘Lord who is the Source of All, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, mysterious Three in One, I offer myself now as a vessel to be filled by Thee. I swear to keep myself pure and empty of all the desires of the flesh, distractions of the flesh, corruptions of the flesh, so that all my energy shall be directed towards Thee. I pray that my life on earth, like a still pool, shall reflect Thy Will so that it may be seen on earth as it is in Heaven. Amen.’

Chapter 9

Marriage to Tondbert AD 652

Etheldreda told her father that she was to take the veil, and that she would stay at court only long enough to see him married to a new wife who could take over her duties.

‘I will not take a new wife,’ said Anna. ‘If you go, I will be alone.’

‘Then that is your choice,’ Etheldreda said firmly.

Anna sat for a long time after she had left the hall, chin sunk on his chest, his eyes dark and deep under his heavy brows.

The decision he had to make was not easy. As the only marriageable daughter of a much respected king, beautiful, cultured and charming, Etheldreda was a prize much sought after. Anna and his council had spent a great deal of time recently weighing up the relative merits of those who would be glad to seal an alliance with him by marrying the princess. King Oswin of Deira would have been perfect for her. But he was dead. Prince Tondbert, ruler of the South Gyrwes, had asked for her, but he was an old man, tough and uncouth. He held the key to the defence of East Anglia and he ruled the vast fenlands that separated the kingdom from the Mercians. On hearing the news that spies had brought of Mercian plans for a second and more formidable attack, the council that very day had persuaded King Anna that an alliance through marriage with Prince Tondbert would be a great advantage. Up to now the fen people had been fiercely independent, cut off from the world and its shifting politics. The only man who understood them and commanded their grudging respect was Tondbert. If anyone could make them take sides in a war between Mercia and East Anglia, he could. But he would not do it if he felt himself slighted. Mercia had its princesses and Penda would not hesitate to use one of them to obtain what he wanted. Anna called Etheldreda back; she had been a spirited child and he knew that as a woman there was a strength in her he would rather not challenge. But he had no choice. He told her about Prince Tondbert’s request, and the council’s decision.

‘The council’s decision?’ she asked, her blue eyes looking straight into his. ‘Does the king not have the final word?’

‘My decision,’ he corrected himself quietly, meeting her gaze steadily. There was silence for what seemed a long while, then Etheldreda turned away and paced about the deserted hall. He had dismissed all his companions, retainers, slaves and thegns and the place was uncannily quiet. Etheldreda could not remember a time when she had seen the hall so empty, nor when it looked so huge; the tall wooden columns at the sides seemed taller, the long tables and benches longer. She ran her hand along the beautifully worked tapestry that kept the draughts from blowing upon the king’s back, and returned at last to stand before her father.

‘I find it difficult to refuse you, my father,’ she said quietly. ‘I can see our safety depends on this marriage, but I have given my life as wife and mother away so that I may serve the Lord Christ. I have sworn an oath.’

The king looked old and tired. He knew the binding strength of such oaths. No man was more despised amongst his people than an oath breaker, the betrayer of the Lord’s trust.

‘Prince Tondbert is an old man, daughter,’ he said thoughtfully at last. ‘A Christian. He will understand that you can’t break a vow to the Lord Jesus Christ and may be content to take you as wife only in name. Your presence at his court will hold the Mercians at bay for he has reason to fear them as much as we have. And your learning and your knowledge of diplomacy will help him bring his country out of barbarism. There are many favours you will be able to give him without the sharing of his bed.’

‘Ask him, father,’ the girl said in a low voice. ‘For I will marry him on no other terms.’

She left him and went for a long ride in the forest. She longed to escape court life with its endless round of petty intrigues. She was bored with the monotonous bouts of drinking, the boasting of violent deeds, the greedy hands outstretched for favours or for presents from the king. Did no one do anything for love anymore? She missed the monastic life she sampled at Dunwich and in France, where every thought, every activity seemed charged with significance for eternal life. If she married Tondbert she would have to forgo the life she longed for, but it might not be for long. He was old and, although his muscles were still firm and hard like the roots of an ancient tree, his eyes had the grey rims to the iris that she had often seen in old people not long for this world.