Time of the Beast (3 page)

In the middle of the island, at its highest point, I discovered an ancient tumulus, a tall solid burial mound of earth, covered with heavy stones which had clearly been brought here from somewhere beyond the marshes. At its base on one side, the large rocks had at some time been torn away, and an attempt had been made to excavate down inside the structure in a search for treasures and grave goods buried alongside the bones of whoever lay there. I was most surprised to find this rugged tribute to the dead in such a remote place, the only sign that there had ever been any human habitation here. Clearly any settlers had long ago abandoned this island, unable to eke out a living here. But this did not concern me, for their needs had not been the same as mine. Yet it did occur to me that the tumulus might be useful. It could serve as a solid foundation, to support the shelter I must build for myself. Now I must return to my monastery to bid farewell to my brothers and come back with building materials and men to assist me. Then I would be entirely alone.

Finally I returned to cross back over the stream and pulled off my cloak as I strode into the water. But this time I allowed myself no moment of pause, no brief sensation of indulgence or pleasure. I hurried across to the opposite bank, snatching up my clothes and pulling them on while I was still wet. Then I went to find Wecca. I discovered him lying on the grass nearby. He was on his back, his arms stretched up to rest his head in his hands. He was still naked, drying his body in the faint sunlight; and as I drew near I saw he had fallen into a light sleep. In that moment I felt loath to wake him, for he appeared so tranquil and innocent, this great rough-looking man. As I stood over him, I found I was beginning to stare with a growing fascination at his body, exposed there in the golden glow of the sun. I told myself as I did so that this was to reassure me that there truly were no innate differences between us, as he had supposed there might be. But in fact there were differences, for mine was the thin body of a monk from the scriptorium, and his was a sturdy frame with powerful muscles and old scars visible on his arms and legs, the wages of years of toil and battle.

It had been many years since I last gazed directly upon an unclothed human form, not since my childhood in fact. When I went with other monks from the monastery into the outside world, I would sometimes see people bathing and swimming in ponds and streams, but I had been strictly instructed that it was seemly to turn my eyes from this. Now that I found myself alone, looking secretly upon this uncovered body, I found I was unable to tear my gaze from it. I reflected that my stare was born of innocent admiration for this perfect example of God’s creation, this fleshly instrument so ideally fitted for the life it led. But still my eyes lingered with a devouring intimacy upon the small goose-bumps that covered the pale skin in the open air, the broad chest covered in thick hair that rose and fell in a gentle rhythm, and the thin line of down that ran along the middle of the flat torso and was lost amongst the wild growth of curls about the groin.

Suddenly Wecca sighed faintly and stirred a little in his sleep. As he did so I felt a tingling sense of shock, for I saw at once that his organ began to stiffen and rise, becoming tumescent in a few moments. In that instant his eyes opened, and he looked up at me, smiling drowsily. I turned away in alarm and tried to quell the tremble in my voice as I said:

‘We are finished here. I have decided this place will be suitable.’

He stood, and moved before me, his member still half erect, although he did not seem to notice this, or else to care. Then he nodded and said:

‘Yes. I tell you this island is best.’

‘Thank you, Wecca,’ I said. ‘Your advice was sound. Now go and get dressed. We should leave.’

‘Yes.’ He thought for a moment and said, ‘We must go while there is still much light.’

Then he turned and pissed copiously into the grass, before going off to put on his clothes. When he returned it seemed his mood had changed, for I saw that his face appeared troubled. He stood in silence and looked at me with apparent nervousness.

‘What is it, Wecca?’ I asked him. ‘What is the matter?’

He approached me, seeming lost for words, then he fell to his knees and grasped at my legs.

‘There is much I would tell you,’ he cried out in sudden distress. ‘But you will be angry at me and call me a bad man. You will call me sinner and curse me.’

At his touch I felt a strange, slightly dizzy sensation as my heart began to pound. I did not like people touching me.

‘I will not be angry, Wecca,’ I said, my voice faint as my throat grew tight. ‘Whatever it is… I promise… I will not.’ I reached out to motion him to his feet. He stood for a moment, his wide blue eyes staring into mine, and once more I was struck by his wild beauty. Then without warning he flung himself at me, his arms enfolding me as he swept me to him in a powerful embrace, his cheek pressed to mine. And my strength simply melted away as I stood quivering and powerless, unable to move or think, trapped there in his arms. While I knew in my mind I must try to break free and demand some explanation, my body would not respond and I felt I had no ability to resist him.

‘Brother,’ he gasped into my ear, and it seemed he struggled to speak. ‘You know most men be good and natural men. But other men be not natural men and do not do natural things. But these not natural men are true men. This you must believe.’ I heard his words only vaguely, for my body was overcome and I seemed to be sinking into a kind of daze. Then he thrust me backward, grasping my shoulders and holding me at arm’s length, restoring to me a little of my senses, before he pulled me close to him again, our eyes meeting as I felt the stirring of his breath and the warmth of his body against me. ‘Do you understand what I say?’ he urged me, and I looked back at him, still overwhelmed as I attempted to shake my head. He drew closer still, his breath hot on my ear, and spoke in a whisper which made it seem as if he feared some intruder might overhear us in this incredibly remote place. But I did not listen to his words. For it was now I recalled the previous night and the fearful reluctance of the village men to speak openly of their superstitious beliefs. At once I began to understand. Wecca was attempting to warn me against something, and when he said that ‘Not natural men are true men’ he spoke of his own conviction that the tales of unnatural beings which prowled in the Fens were true.

I stood, my mind simply blank and stunned, barely comprehending what had just happened. I could not believe my own passive response to Wecca’s alarming actions, my seeming inability to offer any resistance.

Wecca was still talking, whispering all manner of wild nonsense, encouraged by my failure to react angrily. I was still too immersed in my own state of shock and dismay to listen to him closely, but what he seemed to be telling me was that the remnants and survivors of old and terrible races still inhabited, in isolated pockets, the deepest and darkest reaches of the Fens. He meant that over the centuries the waves of invaders who had flooded into our isles had supplanted, time and again, the earlier inhabitants, who had fled to seek shelter in the most wild and remote regions of the land, to live there in dwindling numbers, practising their primitive magic, growing inbred and deformed until they were no longer like men at all – if indeed they had ever been. I had heard of these superstitions before. The Church called these mythical creatures the
hominem silvestrem
or wild men of the forest. Some credulous folk imagined they were not in fact the fleshly scions of monsters at all, but rather the vengeful ghosts of the monsters themselves. Where the wild men were concerned, many were uncertain where degraded flesh ended and dark spirit began.

I found these delusions interesting, for I believed I understood how they had come about. When, two centuries ago, our own peoples had come to Britain from our Germanic homelands, we had driven back many of the native population – the Celtic Britons – until now they occupied mostly the western parts of the island: the lands of the outsiders, whom we call the
wealas
. But it seemed most likely that some Britons, fleeing subjection or slavery, had retreated into the concealment of these great Fens, and that their descendants might still exist here in small groups and must surely appear to be strange and alien if ever sighted by people like Wecca, who had supposed even monks might be made differently to other men.

Yet I found I could not be angry with Wecca for his foolish beliefs, for it was clear his warning was one of honest concern, and that he had risked my wrath to give it. I simply assured him that a good Christian had nothing to fear from the hearth side tales of old women. But I thanked him for the basic good sense of his advice, which was never to wander too deeply into the fen, and
never
at night.

But as we trekked back that afternoon through the marshes, my mind was much disturbed. For it was very clear to me that I, a monk and a servant of God who had willingly taken my strict vows of renunciation of the flesh, should not have found myself entranced in the sunlight by the bare skin of a common woodsman, nor overcome by his sudden embrace. And as I gazed at the sturdy form of Wecca, striding in front of me, I found myself at once stricken by a sense of pure anger towards him; and in my heart I cursed him for an ignorant fool and a shameless savage.

Next I travelled by river up to the north coast of East Anglia, where I discussed with the boatmen there the practical arrangements for transporting men and materials into the Fens. It was not an easy matter, but one that could be managed. I was able to inform the head boatman that one of our revered saints, the blessed St. Dado, had died a glorious martyr’s death at a place nearby, many years ago, as a missionary preaching the Faith to the pagans. He told me he knew the story, and what he had heard was that the blessed Dado had gone to preach at the hall of the local lord, where everyone regarded him as a harmless lunatic, until one night, when the warriors in the beer hall were more than usually intoxicated, someone had discovered the drunken Dado attempting to fornicate with a goat. So they all took him out to use him for target practice, and he had died bleating like the object of his desire. That was often the way with such men, he smirked, ‘Cross in one hand and cock in the other.’ Much angered, I cautioned him for his soul’s sake never again to repeat this malicious calumny. Then I concluded my business and set out to return to my monastery.

Some time after my arrival there, I was summoned to an audience with the abbot, a man named Adelard, in his private study. It was an impressive chamber – unlike the plain dwellings of the other monks – with a shuttered window which faced the setting sun, and walls adorned with shelves full of hide-bound books – an enormous treasure – along with fine wood carvings depicting Biblical scenes. Abbot Adelard was a Frank, who spoke Anglish perfectly, although still with a strong accent, and he greeted me with his customary dignity of manner. He was a man of advanced years, perhaps fifty, but his mild exterior concealed a true fierceness in his devotion to the doctrines of the Church.

‘So, Brother Athwold,’ he said, as he motioned to me to stand before him. ‘You are determined to persist with this matter of yours?’

‘I am, Father Abbot,’ I replied.

‘And the reason for your decision, the troubles and dissatisfactions in your mind, I must presume they remain unresolved?’

‘Yes, Father Abbot.’

‘I must tell you, Brother,’ he said, ‘that your longing after a life of seclusion has won you much esteem here in our community. The younger monks especially seem to admire your resolve to commit yourself to an existence of solitary contemplation.’ He shrugged. ‘And why not? Such sacrifice is an admirable thing. So most men believe.’ I was aware now that a discordant note had crept into his voice. ‘But I feel compelled to ask myself what would be the condition of the Church if all those who serve in it were to abandon their responsibilities and seek escape from the world? The answer is most clearly that the enterprise of our Holy Church would die. So I say to you, Brother Athwold, look carefully and study closely your own motives in this, and consider if what you are doing is truly a thing of devotion and humility, or really just an act of intransigence and pride.’ He paused and looked hard at me, for there was significance in these last words. ‘I know your opinion of the Irish matter. Indeed you made it very clear. You made it a source of contention all about you. You, who I once thought to be a man of such loyalty to the Church. But you have seen fit to question the wisdom of your superiors and even of the blessed Augustine himself.’

At that moment Abbot Adelard and I seemed to be returned to our positions of nearly two years before. Back then, the Irish matter had been controversial. My own opinion of it had been outspoken, and unusually at variance with the prevailing view within our Catholic Church.

The matter concerned the long and bitter dispute between two Christian sects – the Celtic Church of Britain and Ireland, and the Catholic Church of Rome. British Celts are of course Christians – though often poor ones – a legacy from the days when Britain was a province of the old Roman Empire. But over two hundred years ago, when the Empire of Rome collapsed in the west, the British and Roman churches were split and separated as pagan barbarians overran much of Europe, and the British Church began to exist independently from the Roman. At that time a British missionary named Patricius took the Christian Faith across the sea to the Irish peoples; as the pagan Angles, Saxons, Jutes and others began their migration into Britain. Later, the now devout Irish Church sent its own Christian missionaries into Britain to begin converting these heathen settlers – the native British refused to do so, for there was constant war between them.

Then, about seventy years ago, Pope Gregory had sent the monk Augustine on his famous mission to Britain, to Kent, the southern kingdom of the Jutes, to win the pagan lands for the Roman Church. So while Irish missionaries won converts among the Picts and Angles of northern Britain, spreading down from their base upon the Island of Hii, or Iona, in the far north, the Roman Catholics established their mission in the south. In time an unseemly rivalry arose. For by now the Roman and Celtic churches had grown far apart in their customs and practices.