The Oblate's Confession (19 page)

Ceolwulf looked toward the window and for a moment I could see only the left side of his face. He was handsome, at least that side, straight nose, thick hair, dark eyes. Of course the hair looked wrong—there being far too much of it—but otherwise I thought him handsome.

“But you have to give Oswiu credit. He didn’t hole up at Bamburgh as some have when Deira burned. No, he raised an army and....” Ceolwulf paused, smiled to himself. “Or maybe the army raised him. We were all going up there of course. Puch and Tond-here, Beornhæth with what was left of his band, Ingwald and even Guthfrid. Anyone not cut off by Penda’s march left Deira that year for Bernicia. It was late autumn when we arrived and I should
imagine Oswiu didn’t like the looks of us, camped around his walls like so many beggars. But he put a brave face on it. Cried out against the destruction, promised revenge, brought in his priest to pray for us. The priest probably wasn’t such a good idea.” Ceolwulf poked at the fire with a piece of wood. “Called Penda a pagan, all sorts of names, then, as if it were nothing, pointed out that the bodies of the burned now stood little chance of resurrection. That stirred ‘em up.” Ceolwulf glanced around the room. “Put up with all this, then lose it anyway because some bastard likes fire.” Ceolwulf looked at me for a moment. “Do these priests know what they’re doing?”

Again I was caught between two worlds, the one wanting to be agreeable, the other loyal.

But Ceolwulf didn’t wait for an answer. “Anyway,” he said, “Oswiu stepped in before the idiot made a complete balls-up of it. Reminded everyone Christ could do whatever He wanted, greatest prince of them all, the usual, could heal anyone, raise anyone, even someone as horribly burned and disfigured as their poor wives and children—the priest all the time nodding in the background, suddenly afraid of what he’s done, all the murmuring, the ugly looks. So Oswiu convinces them they weren’t complete fools to have become Christians (this having been
his
policy), and to show them how powerful this new God is, how He can do anything, defeat anyone no matter the odds, he offers to prove it with a bargain. If Christ will march at the head of his army and wipe the enemy from the field, then he, Oswiu, like the good king he is, will grant a boon in return for the favor performed.” Ceolwulf held his hand up and made his rings glitter in the firelight. “Always a good idea to remind people of the gifts you can bestow when you’re about to take them into battle. And Oswiu was no fool. No miser either. For us, gold; for Christ, a woman. Or at least a little girl. It was his daughter Ælffled, I think her name was Ælffled.

“So, anyway, in those days, when a man made a gesture like that, especially when he did it in his own hall, his guests were expected to do likewise. Especially when war was afoot. So, soon enough, everybody’s drinking and boasting, promising to give
Christ their daughters, their sons, what-have-you. Hell one fool even offered his ox.” Ceolwulf laughed, shook his head. “Of course no one’s as generous as a young man with his whole life in front of him. I thought I was immortal in those days, no one could touch me, no one.” Again Ceolwulf shook his head. “I stood up, proud, all eyes on me, and promised my next-born
and
two hides of land. My next-born turned out to be you.”

I smiled, pleased to be made part of the story.

Ceolwulf looked at me as if I’d done something wrong. “That was good land,” he said. “Fine land, belongs to your abbot now. A little rocky perhaps but nothing wrong with it. Shame really. If he’s not going to use it, you’d think he could.... You know what I’m talking about Winwæd, the land beyond the two oaks? Don’t know what they call it around here but you might want to talk to the good brothers, see if....” Ceolwulf stopped and looked at me, shrugged. “Hasn’t been cleared anyway. High ground, rocky, probably not worth the trouble.” He glanced toward the door. “Though the baldies haven’t done so badly with rocks, have they?”

I smiled. Guests always complimented our church.

“So, anyhow, pledges made, songs sung, we marched south to find Penda. Not hard really. Stay downwind, follow the smoke. Supposed to have been something in the old days, Penda, a real warrior, but I wasn't so impressed. Couldn’t have been easier to follow, no rear guard, no one left alive to put up a clamor, raise the alarm.” Ceolwulf pulled at a thread on his sleeve. “Of course you can see what he was thinking. Thirty commanders. Called 'em ‘legions!’ Thirty commanders leading thirty
legions.
Must have thought he was invincible. Oswiu’s own nephew to lead them in. But that was where he made his mistake.” Ceolwulf looked hard at me. “Never fight with water at your back and never trust a traitor.”

I nodded, pleased the way he taught me things while he told his story. It reminded me of Father Prior.

“If a man has betrayed once, he’ll betray again. And Ethelwald was leaving his backdoor open. Oh I’m sure he told Penda it was because the valley was better, straighter, easier to keep his army together, plenty of water, provender. And of course he was right,
more settlements along a river, always are. But he was keeping his options open too. You don’t need a horse when you’ve got a river, one side safety, the other hell. When the battle finally came, Ethelwald was on the opposite shore. A traitor but no fool. Almost got away too. Would have if we hadn’t been so quick.

“It was around Loidis...” Ceolwulf hesitated. “You know... maybe Christ really did want all those little girls, you think? I mean, why’s he like little girls so much?”

“The Christ loves all children.” Father Prior said so.

Ceolwulf cocked an eyebrow at me. “Well, maybe, it certainly did rain. Buckets. Two days, three days, might never have caught him otherwise. On the fourth day, still raining, Penda finally stopped. Why march in weather when you’re winning?” Ceolwulf’s smile wasn’t nice. “Only desperate men march in weather. We marched in weather. Caught up with him at a place called Gaius Field. Just a bend in the river really, I don’t know, maybe somebody named Gaius held it once. Anyway, they stopped there. Didn’t burn the place this time because of the rain. Nice farm.
Bottom-land. Two or three out-buildings, a granary, and the one main building. By the time I got there it was already dark. Tond-here took me up to the top of the ridge so I could see them, so many campfires down there it looked like stars, the main building lit up in the center. We sat there for a long time, sounds coming up to us—laughter, singing—the kind of sounds you hear when things are going well, no real resistance, plenty of women for the thanes, farm animals for everyone else.”

Ceolwulf chuckled for a moment, then became serious. “We took them just before sun-up. Early morning. Just enough light to move without noise. It had stopped raining but everything was still wet, slippery. I remember we could smell them before we saw them, moving down through the trees. Armies always stink but this one was particularly bad—all that damp wool, the piss, and something else, we didn’t know what, a terrible smell. As we got closer it got so bad you couldn’t help feeling they were all around you, like the smell, all around you. Then, finally, the fog began to lift and we could see them, hundreds of them, thousands, the
ground littered with bodies.” Ceolwulf looked at me. “That’s what they sing about it now, that it looked like a battle already won— smoke in the air, bodies littering the field, stench of death—but it’s not true. People like songs like that but it doesn’t really look like that, not at the time it doesn’t. At the time it just looks bad, impossible—I don’t care if they were sleeping. I mean I don’t care if they were all lying around on the ground, sleeping. That many men, looking out at that many men: it’ll put the wind up you.

“But we took them. Took them just before sun-up. Best time really. Catch a man in the middle of his dreams, bed still warm, air cold, spirits low. Catch a man like that he hasn’t had time to remind himself of who he is, who his friends are, what they will think of him. Like a child really, all he knows is his sleep’s been broken and more than anything else he wants it back. Like a child.

“It was sun-up, just before, mist everywhere, everything gray and wet. I remember there was a shout, I don’t know, somebody caught a guard, somebody taking a piss, I don’t know, but I remember there was a shout and everyone was running forward, and then I was running forward, swinging my sword, yelling. I killed four men before I had to face anyone standing up. Everyone did. Dead bodies everywhere, tripping over them, slipping in the blood. I saw a man trip over his own guts, stand up, trip again. I saw a man with one leg trying to get to his feet. Comical really, though at the time you don’t think that. I was swinging at someone, the fourth or fifth man, when something hard hit me, stunned me really. For a moment it was as if I were somewhere else, the story of a battle instead of the battle itself, everything moving slowly as it does when you want someone to hurry up and finish the story, and then, all of a sudden, there was a great rush of sound and I realized the man I’d been hacking at was already dead and there was another man, a man with an ax, looking at me. I turned toward the man with the ax and it was then I felt the blood. It was all over me really—you know how facial wounds are—my beard must have been red, my neck. The front of my shield certainly was.”

Ceolwulf smiled as if he’d remembered something funny.

“Peculiar thing about wounds, some wounds, they help you instead of hurt you. But you have to work fast before the shock wears off. That was what was wrong with the man that hit me. Shock. Maybe he was young, maybe he’d never hit anybody with an ax before, maybe he was still half asleep, but instead of finishing the job as he should have, he just stood there like an idiot, eyes wide, mouth working. Used to be a one-eyed man in Oswiu’s hall talked about it. Somebody’d hit him too, an ax, a club, I can’t remember, but instead of gouging his eye or splitting it, the thing had squeezed it somehow, pinched it, because it had popped out.” Ceolwulf chuckled. “‘Like a plum from a pie,’ he said, popped from his face ‘like a plum from a pie.’ And then of course it just hung there, by its cord, dangled against his cheek.

“Well you can imagine. Same thing happened to him happened to me—his opponent so surprised by a man standing there with his eye hanging out he hesitated for a moment, forgot what he was doing. Before he remembered, he was dead. That’s the advantage. A wound like that affects the people around you more than it does you. And of course it makes you angry. The old man claimed he killed twenty before it was over, said he held his eye out in front of him like a lantern, turning it this way and that, seeking them out. Of course it didn’t really work anymore. Later, after the battle was over, he tried to put it back in but it didn’t work anymore, couldn’t see anything with it. Used to laugh and say he’d probably put it in wrong, upside down or something. Anyway, he had to cut it off and after that he wore a cloth over that eye.”

Ceolwulf fingered the whiskers along his scar. “Ugly isn’t it? My eyebrow used to go all the way out to here.” He pointed at a spot beside the crease. “Saved my life though. I’m not saying I remembered the old man’s story, I’m not saying I didn’t. All I know for sure is suddenly no one was moving around me, that idiot standing there like somebody waiting for orders. I gave him orders. I sank my sword into him, opened him up from top to chops, each eye watching me as it went down. Hell I don’t blame him! My cheek was opened up to here, wasn’t it, back teeth showing? Must have looked like my ear was grinning! Why I could stick
out my tongue without ever opening my mouth, wiggle it like a snake. They shat all over themselves getting out of my way, cattle really, sheep. Never felt so brave, so sure of myself. But of course it didn’t last, couldn’t I suppose. Killed two more I think, maybe three, then I don’t remember anything after that.” Ceolwulf looked at me. “Flesh wounds do that to you. No matter how strong you are, how big, the strength drains from you with the blood. Anyhow, after it was over, they told me I’d killed eight men, Ethelhere among them, but I don’t know. That seems like a lot of men.”

Ceolwulf got up and walked over to the window. Earlier they had been working in the pollards but the sounds had stopped now. Ceolwulf looked out that way anyway.

“What about the smell?” I asked. “What about the smell you smelled? What was that?”

Ceolwulf looked at me, the light from the window making his face pale. “The smell?”

“The bad smell you smelled at the beginning.”

“Oh, that.” Ceolwulf smiled. “Well, I didn’t find out about that till later, afterwards. There were Eyra women there that time, sometimes there are, sometimes there aren’t. Anyhow, one of them nursed me. Not much to look at and her poultices stank, but she knew what she was doing.” Ceolwulf looked at the fire. “It’s the fire you want to keep out of a wound like that, the heat. It’s when they turn red-hot you know you’re in trouble. But the woman knew what she was doing. She bathed me and tended me and, slowly, the hole knit itself shut.

“Of course for a long time I couldn’t talk. Tried to but half the time air just blew out of my cheek. She didn’t like it. Said I shouldn’t do it, it was bad for the wound, but I don’t think that was it. I think she just didn’t like the sound it made. Anyhow I lay there for a long time with nothing to do, couldn’t talk to anybody, didn’t have the strength for any work. People would come by and talk to me but all I could do was nod or shake my head, maybe point a finger at something.” Ceolwulf had sat back down by the fire and now he looked at me. “It makes people uncomfortable you know, the not talking. It shows a lack of courtesy. No one wanted
to sit with me, no one wanted to talk with me, or at least not long. I couldn't carry on my share of the conversation. But, even so, I began to hear what had happened.”