Moyra Caldecott (26 page)

The Mercian defeat was not such that Northumbria could boast of conquest. Wulfhere’s brother, Ethelred, married to Egfrid’s sister, Osryth, became king of a Mercia still powerful enough to overlord most of the seven kingdoms.

Over the next few years while Ely grew as a centre of light and Theodore of Canterbury was busily preparing a unified Church of Britain, the countries that had been held in a state of political equilibrium during the time Etheldreda was queen began to shift and move.

Ethelred of Mercia ravaged Kent, burning churches, destroying villages.

Egfrid harried the British and the Picts to the west and the north, while keeping his southern borders with Mercia heavily guarded.

After three years as her steward and much longer as her close friend, Ovin died. Etheldreda sat beside his body through the night, her heart closer to breaking than it had been for a long time. He had always been so strong, a certain comfort to her in everything that alarmed or frightened her. Now he had left her, and no matter how much she told herself that she should rejoice for he was with their Lord, her sense of loss was deep and painful.

Now she was alone. The child who had cried in the wake of Penda and turned to the Celtic slave for comfort was dead too. The future might be vast and rich, but the past, crouching in the heart, would always cry in the night for things no longer possible, for a loved one no longer to be touched.

The cross she erected for him said simply, in Latin:

‘Thy light to Ovin grant, O God, and rest. Amen.’
[22]

Eormenburh’s husband had been killed in the battle against Wulfhere and she at last achieved what she had long wanted, the position of Egfrid’s queen. One of her first deeds was to poison Archbishop Theodore’s mind against Wilfrid. Egfrid had never forgiven him for refusing to help him with Etheldreda, nor for having her friendship and affection still. Eormenburh had no trouble in enlisting his help to destroy the man who had rejected her.

Theodore was in the process of reorganising the Church and of dividing the huge bishoprics. He did not hesitate, on Egfrid and Eormenburh’s advice, to unseat Wilfrid and divide his see between Bosa, Bishop of Deira, and Eata, Bishop of Bernicia.

Indignant at the injustice of this, Wilfrid chose to go to Rome like Saint Paul, whom he admired above all men, to present his case. He did not see Etheldreda before he left, though she heard of the events and was greatly distressed to think that it was his friendship with her that had caused Egfrid to hate him so. That it may have been Egfrid’s fear of his growing power and influence and jealousy of his great wealth that made him seek his downfall, did not occur to her.

In early August of the year 678 a comet spanned the sky, bringing with it to everyone who saw it feelings either of fear or of elation.

Etheldreda rejoiced in its beauty and went out in the fields long before dawn to watch its progress, her feet wet with the dew, her eyes shining with the promise of glories to come in God’s Kingdom, if the sky, which after all was only His antechamber, could contain such splendours.

Wilfrid, resentful and restless on the boat bearing him to France on the first lap of his journey of protest to Rome, saw it as the Sword of justice raised threateningly by God above Egfrid’s head.

Egfrid himself, locked in battle with Ethelred of Mercia, saw it as a sign of God’s favour and a promise that he would win, while Ethelred claimed it as a sign from God to him that he would have the victory.
[23]
As it happened, neither won, but many of their loyal subjects were slaughtered on the banks of the River Trent, and the popular young King of Deira, Alfwin, Egfrid’s brother, met his death.

Heregyth was faced with the loss of her husband Imma and, heartbroken, made her way south to Ely, returning at last to Etheldreda, ready to take the vows of a nun. Age and sorrow were beginning to wear her down, and Etheldreda found her friend much subdued.

In the spring of the following year she took the veil and settled to a calm routine of work and prayer, never reaching the heights that Etheldreda reached, and yet finding a kind of peace of mind at last.

In June this peace of mind was shattered.

Etheldreda received news from her nephew, King Hlothere of Kent, that a young man called Imma, claiming to have been once a thegn of hers at York, was requesting ransom money in her name to free him from slavery. Trembling with excitement she rushed to find Heregyth.

The two women could not imagine what had happened, but Heregyth was given at once an escort to take her to Kent, and a letter for King Hlothere asking him to pay anything that the slave-master asked, to free Imma, who was indeed known to her and much loved.

The story Heregyth heard when she at last was reunited with the husband she had thought dead was an extraordinary one.

It seemed he had been knocked unconscious in the battle of Trent and had lain insensible for hours. When he recovered consciousness the battlefield was deserted. He managed to get away before the burial parties came, but, still dazed from the blow on his head, he was not clear in which direction his homeland lay.

He was found by some Mercian soldiers and taken before Ethelred. Fearing to say that he was one of Alfwin’s thegns, he said he was a peasant who had followed the army with food.

Ethelred ordered him to be put in chains and kept as a slave. But the manacles that were put upon him slipped off. New ones were brought but they too slipped off. It was found that no manacles would stay upon him no matter what was done to make them fit.

He was brought back before Ethelred.

The king looked at him long and hard.

‘I think you have lied to us,’ he said. ‘You are no peasant.’

Imma confessed that he was not, and gave his real identity.

‘How do you account for the fact that my blacksmith can’t make manacles to stay on you?’

‘I don’t know, my lord, but I have a brother who is a priest, and who surely will be praying for my soul. Perhaps his prayers are keeping me from being chained.’

Ethelred was uneasy at this thought and decided he would take no more responsibility for the man. He sold him to a Frisian in London, who on finding that he had the same problem as Ethelred in keeping him chained, and hearing Imma’s explanation, gave him the opportunity to buy his freedom.

It was at this point that Imma went to King Hlothere for the ransom price.

Hlothere gave it to him gladly in Etheldreda’s name, and when Heregyth and he were reunited gave them a great feast of celebration.

At the end, when it was time for bed, Heregyth began to weep.

‘What is it, my love?’ Imma asked, concerned.

‘I’ve taken vows of chastity!’ wailed Heregyth. ‘Oh why wasn’t I given a sign that you were still alive!’

They talked all night, trying to find a solution, but neither, after Imma’s experience, would consider breaking a vow to God.

Wearily, sad-eyed at the dawn, they agreed that there was no way for them but for Imma too to take such vows, and join Etheldreda’s community. At least they would be together, though they would never again share a bed.

On their return to Ely they found that the dreaded shadow of pestilence hovered over the community. Guests had brought it from where it ravaged the East Saxons. Heregyth was told that Etheldreda was already ill, but that she refused to let them be distressed by it.

‘Just after you left a family came asking for shelter,’ one of the sisters told Heregyth. ‘The widowed mother pleaded to be allowed to test out the holy life to see if it were suitable for her and her family. She and her children looked perfectly healthy to us but within a few days they were ill of the plague. Our holy mother did not look at all surprised when we told her of it. She said she had seen a dark shadow behind the woman that was not cast by the sun. We asked her why she had allowed her to enter, having had this premonition.

‘ “Should I have turned her away because she carried suffering with her?” she said. “Is it not suffering that we are here to alleviate or endure in God’s name?” ’

‘We felt shamed. She then told us how many of us would die and how many of us would live through it, but she wouldn’t tell us the names.

‘ “Only one name I will give you,” she said, “and that is my own.” ’

‘Will you be among the living or the dead?’ we asked.

‘ “The living,” she replied calmly, “but no more on this earth.” ’

‘We then understood that she was to die, but she wouldn’t let us weep or mourn. Since that time she has been arranging everything about the place to run smoothly without her.

‘Huna has been instructed that her burial must be as simple as that of an unknown peasant, her coffin wood, her grave unmarked.’

‘I must see her!’ cried Heregyth.

‘She is very ill.’

‘No matter. She and I have been like sisters since childhood. I must see her.’

She found her in her little cell with no more comforts than she usually had, her face flushed and wet with fever and a horrible swelling on her neck, under her chin.

On seeing Heregyth, a lovely smile came to her face.

‘I was hoping you would come.’

Heregyth knelt down beside her.

‘No, don’t weep, my sister. You must know by now, death is not what it seems. Besides – I’ve been told Imma’s story. So pray for me when I’m gone – it seems to be very effective.’ She gave a mischievous smile at this, which brought further tears to Heregyth’s eyes.

The surgeon Cynefrid lanced the swelling on her neck a few days later, and for a while it looked as though she would recover. She had her bed moved out during the daytime into the garden, where she could hear the birds sing and see the flowers growing. One by one the whole community came to her side and spoke with her, receiving courage and inspiration from her.

One day Heregyth could keep up the brave face no longer and burst into tears in front of her. ‘I hate to see you suffering,’ she sobbed.

Etheldreda looked concerned. ‘My friend,’ she said gently. ‘It is you who are suffering, and for that I’m truly sorry. For myself I find the pain in my neck a relief. I see it as a penance for all the times I have put worldly matters before the eternal. Remember the necklace I used to wear with such delight? Well, this jewel of pain reminds me that beneath the surface of everything that shines with earth-light alone, is darkness.’

The temporary improvement gave way to a higher fever and during her short periods of consciousness it became increasingly difficult for her to speak the words of comfort and encouragement those around her had grown to expect.

Heregyth never left her side. One night when she was alone with her she murmured something and Heregyth leant down to hear what it was.

‘The candle… the candle flame is dark…’ she thought she heard.

‘Dark, my lady?’

‘Dark against the light I see… blow it out Heregyth… we want no darkness here!’

Heregyth blew the candle flame out, but she could not see the light Etheldreda was talking about.

Etheldreda died on the 23rd of June 679 with her friends around her, and was buried as she had wished, simply.

Exactly the number of monks and nuns died at Ely that she had foretold. When the number was reached, the pestilence abated and the community returned to its normal working round.

Epilogue

Exhumation 17 October AD 693

The pavilion flapped in the stiff breeze, tugging at the wooden pegs that held it to the earth. Saxberga, Abbess of Ely, had herself made sure that it was firmly tied before the ceremony began, testing the ropes with her own hands, knowing that autumn could be changeable and that although they might start the work in calm sunshine they might have to finish it in storm.

She stood now before the entrance, an old woman but still holding herself as regally as when she was Queen of Kent. It was to be her command that would set the two monks digging at the grave of her sister.

When Etheldreda had died fourteen years before she had been insistent that she was to lie in a plain wooden coffin amongst her brothers and sisters of the monastery, and that there was to be nothing that would mark her grave out from theirs. They had respected her wishes at first and there had been nothing on the grave to show a passing stranger that in it lay a woman who was the daughter of a king, once herself Queen of Northumbria, and the founder of Ely. But pilgrims had still come and found her grave. The grass was worn thin around it, the earth-level sinking as the dust was carried away in thousands of little flasks and leather pouches to be used for healing or for protection against demons.

It was decided that her bones should be moved from their present exposed position and transferred to a stone coffin more fitting for such a great lady, within the protective body of the church.

It was for this purpose that they were now gathered together at her graveside.

Wilfrid, now the Bishop of Lichfield under the protection of King Ethelred of Mercia, stood beside the abbess, his face lined, his hair grey from all the misfortunes that had befallen him in the last years, but still handsome, and still lordly in his bearing.

On his return from Rome with letters from Bishop Agatho declaring that he had been unlawfully dismissed from York and that he must be reinstated, he had been flung into prison by Egfrid, who declared that the letters were forgeries. Eormenburh had taken the valuable relics he had purchased in the holy city with his own money, and had had them set in a gold chain which she wore around her own neck. The proud bishop rotted in Egfrid’s dungeons for almost a year before Abbess Ebba of Coldingham secured his release by pointing out to Egfrid that the fits Eormenburh had begun to have were probably a form of punishment for the way they had treated Wilfrid, and the way she had profaned the holy relics.

He stood now beside the grave of the woman he had loved, deep in thought. The years when she had been queen were golden in memory. Everything had come easily then, comfort and riches seemed his by right. Stripped of everything in prison he had thought of her until he feared he would go mad. She was dead before he returned to Northumbria and he would never see her again, but something she had once said to him finally pulled him through the dark days and gave him strength. The last talk they had together had been of the foolishness of trusting to worldly riches and worldly power for security. Had she known what the future held for him? She had said, and he could see her now saying it, ‘When we are flying through a storm it is the strength of our wings and our courage that keeps us going, not the colour of our feathers.’