The Oblate's Confession (21 page)

He shook his head and walked back toward me, firelight glancing off belt and brooch. He squatted down next to me. He smiled. He put a finger to his lips like a monk signalling silence and then he said something.

Again I couldn’t hear him.

“Your bishop. I want you to tell me about your bishop.”

The bishop?

“Tell me about Wilfrid.”

I shook my head. “He’s our bishop, our father. He built the abbey and the terrace, he built the bridge.”

Ceolwulf said something but he spoke so low I had to lean toward him to hear him. “He’s Northumbrian,” I said, thinking that was what he’d asked, “Deiran, I think.” I thought it would please Ceolwulf to think our bishop Deiran.

“No, not
where
does he come from,
which way
does he come from?”

“I’m sorry?”

“When he visits I mean.”

“Here you mean? When he visits here?”

“Yes,” Ceolwulf glanced toward the door as if he’d forgotten everyone was at Terce. “Does he come from the east like most people, up the valley, or does he use some other route?”

“I don’t know,” I said, never having thought about it before. “You don’t know which direction he comes from?” Ceolwulf looked surprised. “You’ve never noticed when the bishop arrives?”

I was embarrassed. “No,” I said. “I mean, no, I’ve never seen which way he comes because he doesn’t come here. The bishop doesn’t ever come here.”

“Um-hmm.”

I had to admit it didn’t make sense. If the bishop built the bridge, he had to have been here to do it. I had always pictured him standing in the water, a little man wearing a crown and vestments, lifting the stones into place one by one. But now that I thought about it, it seemed unlikely that one man, no matter how important, could have done that, built the bridge all by himself. To say nothing of the other things he was given credit for, the church, our furnace, the terrace, the mill. He must have had help. But he must also have been here. I mean why else would they say he built the bridge if he couldn’t have, if he’d never even been here to build it?

“You know, there aren’t many of us left.”

“Sir?”

Ceolwulf stood up again and his knees made a noise. I was always surprised when that happened, when grownups’ knees spoke, but I didn't say anything. Ceolwulf didn’t say anything either. He turned around and began to warm his backsides before the fire. He looked up into the roof. I didn’t think he could see anything up there. After a while he spoke again. “There’s an old man,” he said, “lives on my place. Everyone calls him ‘Old Wighard’ now but I remember him when he was just ‘Wighard’. Anyway, he’s an old man now, and he spends most of his days sitting in the shade outside my door. I suppose he’s entertained there. People come and go. Sometimes he talks with them, passes the time of day, sometimes he just sits there. His wife died years ago. Childbirth I think, but he still has the boys, men really, Eanred and Lyfing. Their place is on the high ground.” Ceolwulf glanced down at me. “Not far from here, I must have passed it on my way in. Anyhow, it’s a little distance from the hall so, every morning,
one of the boys brings him down, Wighard I mean. I don’t know, they must have a lantern or something because it’s usually before sunrise.”

Ceolwulf looked at me again. “You know I helped daub their house when I was a boy. Beornwine must have been away— Mercians, land clearing, I don’t know—but I was there when he put up his house.” Ceolwulf shook his head. “Probably time for a new one now. But it’s some distance anyway, for an old man to walk I mean. So every evening, just before sunset, one of the boys comes back again for his father. From down where I sit I can’t hear what they say, how they greet one another, but I can see it. The hall faces south, our hall faces south, and I can see it, the last of the light coming in at an angle like that. Old Man Wighard doesn’t have many teeth left but he shows what he has when the boy arrives. You’d think it was something marvellous he was bringing him, some kind of message the way he smiles. But the boy’s still serious, been in the fields all day, working in the fields. He picks up his father’s staff, helps his father to his feet, business-like, intent on the work-at-hand. You can tell Wighard understands this—the fieldwork, the pride his son takes in it. For his sake he tries to look serious himself, checking the ground around the door, making sure he hasn’t left anything behind. But when his son hands him his staff he has to look at him again and then of course he can’t help himself, he smiles. It’s as if he were looking at him for the first time again, as if he had the little toes again, the perfect little fingers.”

Ceolwulf looked away, seemed to think about something. After a moment or two, he looked back at me. “Sooner or later of course the boy notices this, the grin, his father’s idiot grin. It embarrasses him I suppose—I don’t know, but he’s a good boy, polite, he smiles back. Usually he says something too, to the father I mean, probably something funny, something to break the mood, remind his father that people are watching. But it doesn’t matter. I mean the father says something back, replies, but you can tell his heart’s not in it. It’s the boy he’s interested in, the wonder of the boy, this big, grownup son. He shakes his head, he smiles his toothless
smile. He...I don’t know...he delights in the boy.”

Ceolwulf turned back toward the fire. “You know there’s only the two of you left now.” He indicated the door with his head but kept his eyes on the fire. “Only Oisc and you. Of course I never get to see you, and Oisc.... Well, Oisc’s Oisc. The rest of my boys are gone.”

For a while after that Ceolwulf was silent. He had his good side toward me. I sat on the floor and looked up at him. He was, I decided, the handsomest man I had ever seen. And quite likely the saddest. It was obvious that he loved his family very much. I had never realized how hard it must have been for him to give me up. “How about when he comes for the iron?”

I looked at him.

“Wilfrid I mean. How about when he comes for the iron, which way does he come then?”

I had to think for a moment. “He doesn’t come for the iron,” I said finally. “I mean he doesn’t come himself. He sends someone, a man, he sends a man for the iron.”

“Is it always the same man?”

“Yes,” I thought so. “Yes, I’m pretty sure it’s always the same man.”

“Do you know who he is?”

I shook my head. Oblates weren’t permitted to speak with guests.

“Is he a priest?”

“I don’t know.”

“A monk I mean, does he chant like you?”

I smiled and nodded, pleased to be compared with a grownup.

“Does he come alone?”

“Yes sir, but there are plenty of us here to help him load his wagon.”

That we helped the bishop’s man in this way seemed to please Ceolwulf. He looked back at the fire. He brought his hand up in front of his eyes, looked at his rings. “Of course the priests would have said it was all your fault. Did say it was all your fault, or your
mother’s. Whole thing started when she refused to give you up. Everyone dated it from the ox, from the day when the ox fell, broke its leg, but everyone knew what they were really talking about, what the real starting point was. It’s a very public place you know, the hall, everyone thinks it’s so grand but it’s not, not really. Just a bit of wool separating us from everyone else, no real door, just a thickness of sheep’s wool. You can hear everything. Of course nobody says anything but they heard. You can always tell when they have, the woman yelling like that. So we didn’t give you up and the ox broke its leg. And then the harvest wasn’t so good that year, the woman still saying next year, and then that harvest really wasn’t any good either. Oh, and we lost part of the roof to fire too. You should have heard the grumbling then, everyone looking at your mother, at me, cutting thatch when they should have been working in their own fields, bloodying their fingers on our work when they had plenty of their own to do. But she was a stubborn woman, no one can deny that, and we repaired the roof and we ate what we harvested and we went on raids and ate what others had harvested and nobody said anything, at least not aloud. And then the next year the rain came, too much rain really, too wet, and then the sickness on its heels. Not the same one you had here but a really bad one, much worse, animals dying, people dying, two of your brothers dying, your mother, and still she’s refusing to give you up, making me promise I’ll keep you, take care of you after she’s gone. Of course I didn’t, couldn’t really. By then I think my own people would have....” Ceolwulf stopped, looked at me. “Well it was impossible really. I had to give you up whether I wanted to or not. But I don’t blame you. I don’t think it was your fault, not really. I don’t care what the priests say. Because it didn’t really stop then. The bad times I mean. Oh the sickness went away. The harvests improved. The cattle were fertile again. Everyone else thought that was it, that it was over, that God had relented, but not me. Because I knew what was going on elsewhere. I knew how bad things really were.”

Ceolwulf walked back over to the window, opened one of the shutters a little. He bent down, looked out. When he looked to the
left the sun painted a white line down the middle of his face. “How long does this last?” he asked. “Terce, I mean. How long does this Terce last?”

Too long? It had always just seemed too long to me. “A little while longer,” I guessed. “I’m not sure. Maybe as long again as it’s been since the bell.”

My opinion was good enough for Ceolwulf. He nodded, pulled the shutter back into place. He returned to the fire, squatted down, held out his hands. “It’s like a sickness, isn’t it?” Ceolwulf asked the fire. “When you know a sickness is coming? You can see it, you’ve heard about it, you know it’s coming but there’s nothing you can do about it. That was what it was like at first, Streoneshalh. Everything was fine, everybody going on about their work, planting crops, tilling fields, and all the time I knew it was out there, Streoneshalh. I knew Streoneshalh was coming and it was going to get us.” Ceolwulf looked over at me, studied my face. “You haven’t any idea what I’m talking about, have you?”

I shook my head.

“They’ve never mentioned that name to you? They’ve never told you about Streoneshalh, about Folian, about what happened there?”

“I know about Folian,” I said, proud of the knowledge. “Father Folian was abbot here. I mean he was abbot here before Father Abbot was abbot here.”

“Uh-huh, and what happened to Father Folian? Where do you think the good father is now?”

I shrugged. He wasn’t among the graves.

“I’ll tell you what happened to Father Folian. Streoneshalh happened to him. Streoneshalh came and took this monastery, stole it from him.” Ceolwulf glanced once around Father’s room. “Not that he’d want it now anyway. Liked to sleep rough, caves, under the stars, that sort of thing. ‘God’s roof’ he called it. But Folian loved this place, these people. And someone came and took it away from him, someone who hadn’t worked for it, earned it the way he had.” Ceolwulf nodded at the door. “They ever tell you what’s out there? What’s buried out there, under your cloister?”

“Hadulac who came from east of here, Ælfstan son of Eadbert, Oslac who was an old man, Fursa who was cellarer in this place....”

Ceolwulf smiled. “No, not them. Under them. Under the whole place.”

The ridge? Was he talking about the ridge?

“There’s a ridge out there, all rock where it sticks out from the mountain, big long chunk of solid rock. Can’t see much of it now, buried under your terrace, but there was a time when you could see it, when everyone knew it was there. People used to come from far and wide to see that rock. Long and dark it was, and where it stuck out from the mountain it looked just like a.... Well, it turned dark when it rained, did I tell you that? Purplish. And they liked that, when it changed I mean, they liked things that changed. Probably still do for all I know.” Ceolwulf hesitated, looked at me. “You ever find anything out there?” he nodded toward the door. “You know, lying around the church or anything? Pieces of holly? Maybe something painted on the door?”

I thought about the wagon, but shook my head,
No.
There wouldn’t be anything like that around the church.

Ceolwulf nodded. “Well you never know. Still a lot of them out there, up in the hills I mean. And I guarantee you, if one of them saw that ridge out there, even just that little bit still sticks out beneath the church.... Well, they’d know what it is. Right away they’d know. They have a gift for that sort of thing, telling about things, how things came to be. But not anymore, I mean not anymore since Folian. He changed all that. Came in here in rags, hair down to here, skinnier than you, and damned if he didn’t talk them out of it, talked them out of everything they’d ever believed in. Out there.” Ceolwulf indicated the door with his chin. “Your church. Father Folian built his church right on top of...on top of their holiest site.”

Ceolwulf got up, walked around behind me to the door. I was about to get up myself when he stopped, asked me to wait for him. “I’ll be back,” he said. “You can look at my sword if you want.” Then he went out into the front room. I heard the outside

door open and, after that, voices, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I guessed that Ceolwulf was talking to the man who was my brother, Oisc, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I got up and walked around, working the stiffness out of my legs. I tried not to look at Father’s things. I did look at Ceolwulf’s sword because he had said I could, and I thought about what he had told me. Also I thought about the garth, what was buried out there under the garth. No one else knew about that. Only Ceolwulf and me. I wondered if I would be brave enough to tell Waldhere about it.