The Oblate's Confession (18 page)

“Now?” I asked.

Father nodded. “But it’s all right. You don’t have to see him if you don’t want to. You are a member of this community with the same rights and privileges as anyone else. This man has no claim on you. As far as the Rule is concerned, he is just a visitor to the abbey, a guest like any other.”

I looked back down the path toward the cloister. He was there
now.
He was waiting for me
now.

In my memory of that morning there are two small, unrelated things that stand out. The first was a bowl of soup Ceolwulf’s man was eating. In those days children fasted during Lent like adults. I hadn’t had anything to eat since collation the night before and I was very hungry. I wonder now if the man knew this. In my memory he was sitting on the ground by the door to the abbot’s lodge and he looked at us when we walked up. Later I would find out he was my older brother but I did not know this then. He was just a very tall, very hard-looking man sitting on the ground next to the door to the abbot’s lodge. There were two spears and a shield
leaning against the wall beside him. And he was eating. It was still early, the sun just coming up over the Far Wood, and the light was very pure. The man’s soup looked good. Its surface glistened. When the man noticed where I was looking, he smiled. He pulled a chunk of bread from his blouse, dipped it in his bowl, and brought it, dripping and soggy, to his mouth. My stomach turned at this extravagance and if Father Prior hadn’t shoved me through the door I think I would have fainted.

I also remember the fire someone had lit in Father Abbot’s private chamber. It’s funny what you focus on when you feel confused, and I was feeling very confused that morning. Things were happening that weren’t supposed to happen. Father Prior had invited me to walk on the furnace path. I had been given a choice as to whether I wanted to meet the man who was my father and was not my father. A stranger had looked me directly in the eye. And now there was a fire in Father Abbot’s private chamber. Everyone knew there weren’t supposed to be any fires in Father Abbot’s room, the lord abbot himself had forbidden it. And yet someone had lit one. The man I was about to meet? If Ceolwulf had lit the fire, would he get in trouble for it? Could a man who was a guest (but was also my father) get in trouble for breaking a rule?

There were no introductions. Or, if there were, I don’t remember them. All I remember is myself on the floor, kneeling, the sound of Father Prior’s feet receding through the front room, the heat of the fire on my down-turned head. For a moment I knelt there, terrified, wondering what would happen next, and then, roughly but quite easily, a large hand pulled me to my feet.

I tried to look down but the hand wouldn’t allow it. A finger caught my chin and forced it up. Red face, pale scar, big eyes, shining teeth. “There now,” said the man who was my father, “we’ll have none of that. If there’s one thing I hate about these baldpates, it’s the way they’re always looking at my feet.”

I tried to smile but I could feel the tears coming. I wasn’t used to being handled so.

“That’s a boy, that’s a boy!” The big teeth got bigger and my father’s face broke into a lopsided grin. “You’re your father’s own
son!” The hand released my chin and for a while I could feel where a ring had pressed against the skin. The man who was my father noticed that I had to stop myself from looking down. He nodded to himself “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” he said, and then, as if he’d decided something, he turned and sat on Father Abbot’s bed.

“There now,” he said, smiling again, “warm yourself by my fire. You know there was no fire in this place when I arrived! Cold as a dead man’s backsides!” Ceolwulf laughed and when he laughed it was as if his teeth would fly from his head. I had never seen anyone laugh indoors before and it frightened me. I wanted to step back, to assume custody of the eyes. I wanted to explain why there had been no fire in Father Abbot’s chamber. There were many things I wanted to say, do, but, instead, I was polite. I kept my mouth closed and extended my hands toward the fire. I tried to look like someone who liked so much heat.

Ceolwulf smiled and rubbed his hands back and forth on his legs. “There now, there now. So, are they treating you well?”

I glanced at the door through which Father Prior had gone but could find no help there. I wanted this man to like me, to know I was a good boy, but he had asked me a direct question without first giving me permission to speak. How did he expect me to respond?

Ceolwulf’s eyebrows rose, inviting me to get on with it.

Again I glanced at the door. No one had told me what to do. No one had taught me anything about this.

“Come on,” said Ceolwulf, “I have a right to know. I’m your father.”

I stood up straight. If I went slowly, very slowly, he might understand.

Ceolwulf waited.

I pointed at myself. I placed my hands back at my sides. I smiled. I pointed at my smile. Still smiling, I raised my right hand and rubbed my belly contentedly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Ceolwulf, jiggling his fingers at me. “I’m no monk.”

Despite myself I looked at my feet.

“Come on boy, don’t be shy, speak up!”

I took this as permission. “I am Winwaed,” I said, “oblate of the monastery at Redestone.”

“Yes, yes, and I am Ceolwulf, son of Beornwine, companion of kings, slayer of Ethelhere and Tiowulf.... What of you, boy? What of you?”

Slayer of Ethelhere and Tiowulf.

“You look terribly thin.”

I looked down at myself, embarrassed.

“Do they feed you enough?” Ceolwulf glanced toward the door. “Because if they don’t, I will speak with them. You are my son, you should be treated with respect.”

“They feed me enough....”

Ceolwulf looked at me. I had almost called him “Father.”

“All right, all right,” he said. “And what of your work here? Do you enjoy the life that’s been given you?”

For a moment I just looked at the man. No one had ever asked me a question like that before.

“The praying, the Church, do you like it?”

I thought about Waldhere and Ealhmund, Father Prior and Father Gwynedd.

“It’s not a hard life, now is it? No one, I think, would call it a hard life.”

“There was a sickness. I had to help bury people.”

“Um-hmm, um-hmm, and so you should. When people die, you have to bury them, don’t you?” My father had a habit of playing with the whiskers next to his scar when he was thinking about something. I tried to keep my attention on his eyes.

“You’re very fortunate you know. You know that don’t you?”

Again I thought about Father Prior and Father Gwynedd. I nodded:
Yes, I was very fortunate.

“Never having to worry about anything, never having to make any decisions; it’s a nice life you have up here, a great gift I made you as well as God.”

I had never thought about it that way before but, yes, I supposed he was right. I smiled.

“Of course your mother fought me every step of the way.”

My mother.

“Yes, yes, I know it’s hard to believe. Most of the women are so caught up in this,” Ceolwulf indicated Father Abbot’s room with his hand. “But when a man wants to do something, show he cares too, what do they do?”

I didn’t know.

“‘He’s too young, wait another year.’ ‘Not this year, but the next....’ And then another and another. Before you know it, you’d have been as big as Oisc out there.” My father nodded his head toward the door. “Think they’d have wanted you then?”

My mother had wanted to keep me.

“Of course not, of course not, and that wouldn’t have been right would it? I mean, Lord knows, you can’t do any better than a monk, can you? I mean living life as a monk’s the best thing you can do, isn’t it?”

The scar formed a sort of crease on the side of my father’s face. His whiskers bent in toward the crease so it looked as if they
were being sucked into the scar.

“Of course it is, damned priests telling you all the time. And the woman going to deny you that, her own son! Can you imagine?”

I tried not to look at the scar.

“And of course a promise is a promise, isn’t it? Especially a promise made to God.”

I nodded. I knew the answer to that one.

“Well of course it is.” Ceolwulf smiled. “And I had promised you to God. But I suppose they’ve told you about that haven’t they, about Oswiu and me, Gaius Field?”

The question caught me offguard. I could tell from the way he asked it that I was supposed to know, that apparently everyone was supposed to know, but he had already struck me with so many new ideas—whether I liked it here, my mother, my work, Ethelhere, and now somebody’s field—it was all too much for me.

Ceolwulf shook his head. “Silly priests. Well, sit down boy, sit down. You’ve a right to hear. No, not there. There, by the fire.
Make yourself comfortable.”

The fire was big, too big for the room, and I was already overwarm, but the man was a guest and my father so I did as I was told. I sat by the fire and looked up at Ceolwulf.

“There, how’s that?”

I smiled at him. It was nice that he was so concerned for me.

Ceolwulf nodded to himself then placed his hands on his knees, sat up straight and looked at me. “You will have heard of Penda,” he said.

I nodded, happy to show myself knowledgeable.

“A bastard. But did they tell you it was Deira he attacked, that it was sweet Deira caught the worst of Penda?”

I shook my head. Of course I had been taught about Deira, Deira and Bernicia. We lived in Deira and the bishop lived in Bernicia. But beyond that I knew little.

“Yes, I didn’t think so. Twenty-two years Penda ruled Mercia and every one of them hell for us.” Ceolwulf looked at me. “Killed your mother’s people you know, wiped them out. Had their way with the women, stole what they didn’t eat, then burned everything to the ground. Afterwards, when I knew they were gone, I took her there. Thought there might be something left but there wasn’t. Postholes, trash pits, nothing else. Not an animal alive.” Ceolwulf shook his head. “Never seen your mother like that. Didn’t cry, just got pale, white, all the blood gone to her feet. She picked something up—I can’t remember what, piece of wood, a broken pot, something—and carried it around with her for a while. I don’t think it really meant anything to her. After a while she dropped it again. The place stunk of fire. If you walked close to the house, little clouds of ash puffed up around your feet.

“Of course I was angry. Everyone was angry, but what could we do? Penda had friends, didn’t he? Simple as that. Don’t see why everyone has such a problem understanding it. Painted devils to the north, Cumbrogi to the west, Penda south, the sea behind. Simple.” Ceolwulf looked at me. “Never go into battle with water at your back, boy”—he smiled—“we taught them that. But in those days everyone wanted to be Penda’s friend, Penda’s
companion, even Ethelwald. We didn’t stand a chance.”

Ceolwulf got up and walked away from me. For a moment I was afraid the story was over but then I saw he was just getting more wood. It had been a wet winter and the wood was damp. When Ceolwulf placed it on the fire, the flames died down a little and, however momentarily, the air around my face grew cooler. “Don't know what’s wrong with these people,” said Ceolwulf. “Don't give you enough wood to cook your porridge then look at you as if you’d spat when you ask for more. Whole damned place surrounded by wood! Where was I?”

“You didn’t stand a chance.”

Ceolwulf smiled. “Right. We didn’t stand a chance. So Oswiu did the only reasonable thing, offered treasure. Brooches and rings, dyes and salt, enough iron for fifty swords, a gold and ivory comb that had belonged to Queen Ethelberga, two hundred hides of land (most of it cleared), and his daughter, Alchfled, as bride to Penda’s son. And what did Penda do?” Ceolwulf’s grin grew fierce. “He waited a year, then burned half Deira to the ground. Bastard.

Accepted our tokens, gave his pledge, then invaded anyhow, boasting of what he would do. He loved fire, Penda did, fire was his favorite. He’d as soon torch a field as harvest it, burn a virgin as do her. You could smell him coming on the wind, the smoke and the burning. Sometimes, when the air was very still, the ash would fall like snow when Penda was coming.”