The Oblate's Confession (43 page)

“Father’s a holy man! Father’s...Father’s a holy man!"

The man’s eyebrows rose as if both surprised and pleased by my response. “Oh, I see. There is a
...relationship”
He made a sort of clicking sound with his mouth, tapping his tongue against the back of his teeth.

“Father Abbot knows I go there. Father Prior knows I go there; he sends me there!”

The man nodded, eyebrows raised inquisitively now, “Oh really
...Father Prior
? I don’t believe I know this ‘Father Prior’.”

All the wind went out of me. The monk was mad, had to be. How could you visit Redestone and not know Father Prior? I smiled, nodding as if agreeing with him about something, all the while studying the ground between us, estimating the distance, trying to remember what stood behind me. Were there any impediments, anything that might block my escape? The trail rose steeply here but I knew it well, and I was younger than he, possibly faster. I told myself I could make it.

And, probably, I could have. Probably, if I’d turned then, turned quickly enough, I could have outrun Maban. But of course I never could have outrun his message. Interestingly, in my memory, he doesn’t look at me when he says it. He stands with his face tilted in that way he had, a man scenting something only mildly disagreeable, and, thus placed, relaxed and at ease, beyond the reach of the world, he delivers himself of the end of mine. “No,” he said, “no I do not believe there is a ‘Father Prior’. There is only a
‘Brother
Prior’. And I, of course, am he.”

Oddly enough, as I remember it, it was Ealhmund who told me the story of Godwin’s arrival. Normally of course it would have been Waldhere. I mean I would have turned to Waldhere for such information. But for some reason, in this case, I did not. I wonder, had he already begun to change? Was it at this time that Waldhere began to grow cold, aloof, trying, it seemed, to turn himself into a grownup before his time? For that did happen. I remember that well, the sudden distance, the way he could look down his nose at you (Maban himself) when you suggested a game or some other mischief, something which, only a year before, he would have suggested himself. Though my mind has never made the connection before—Waldhere’s change, Redestone’s change—it does make sense. And would go a long way toward explaining why I should

have turned to Ealhmund of all people for the story of Godwin’s arrival. But I can’t really know for sure. I want to be fair about this, honest. I mustn’t blame everything on Godwin. So I will leave it that, for whatever reason, and entirely out of keeping with past practice, I turned to Ealhmund for enlightenment.

Poor Ealhmund. As Waldhere and I grew up, he seemed to grow in the opposite direction. Not that he wasn’t big. No, as a matter of fact, for an oblate, a member of a monastic community, Ealhmund had by this time become embarrassingly large, almost obese. But even as his body swelled, his mind seemed to contract, becoming ever more childlike, ever more infantile. He began to walk in his sleep again for the first time in years and, every now and then, he wet his bed. His powers of concentration had never been good but by this time he couldn’t even look at you as he spoke, eyes flitting hither and thither, attention likewise, so that getting a story out of the boy could be a real trial. And of course it was about this same time that Ealhmund came under Brother Prior’s watchful eye, and if that didn’t distract you, nothing would.

But despite these obstacles, Ealhmund did eventually tell me what had happened.

Of course at first all I got was the horse, how big a horse it was and how pretty. From the way Ealhmund’s cheeks flushed as he described the animal and the priest on its back you could tell he had been impressed by the vision, though I doubt anyone else was. Father Dagan would have been scandalized and Brother Baldwin doubtless signed something disrespectful. It seems hard to believe that Father Abbot had given his monks no warning, yet Ealhmund remembered none. According to him, the brothers were as surprised that morning as he by the appearance of two men on the abbey path, one mounted, the other walking close behind. There must have been a great to-do. I can imagine Father Prior running around, giving orders for their welcome, Father Abbot hovering in the background, doubtless excited himself, trying not to show it. In the confusion the horse was placed in the care of Brother Ida; who, of course, had not the slightest idea what to do with it and consequently turned it over to one of the villagers.

Apparently there was quite a stir the next morning when Father Godwin asked after the animal and—at least at first—no one was certain where it could be found.

In keeping with tradition, the new arrivals were ushered directly into the refectory (probably still set for Chapter at that time of day), where Father Abbot welcomed them according to the Rule, washing first Maban’s feet, then Godwin’s. But at the end of the ceremony Father turned to the community and, as if everyone present hadn’t just heard the newcomer pronounce his name, introduced the priest again, this time adding, as if it were a matter of little consequence, that hereafter Father Godwin would also be known by the name “Lord Abbot of Redestone.”

Can you imagine the shock that passed down the hall at that moment? And what a way to spring it on them! Who could have the temerity to protest, to point out the obvious, with their new lord and master sitting right there? Still, our Redestone monks are not without backbone. Questions were asked. And though Ealhmund remembered little of their substance, you can gather their

gist from what he did recall, that Father Abbot (Agatho) had gone on “interminably” about bishops, how important bishops were, that they were our true fathers, our true abbots, and that, when you came right down to it, he and Godwin served only at Wilfrid’s pleasure, rather more as sub-priors than actual lords. But such a view of things, however subtle, did little to answer the obvious objection. And Father must have known as much. Was not Chapter itself so-called for our daily reading of a section of the Rule? I will not embarrass my brothers by copying down here the whole of a chapter I’m sure they can recite as well or better than I, but (for the sake of those who come after us, that they might know we followed the same Rule as they) will record only its most pertinent (and opening) lines:

In the election of an Abbot let this always be observed as a rule, that he be placed in the position whom the whole community with one consent, in the fear of God, or even a small part, with sounder judgment, shall elect. But let him who is to be elected be chosen for the merit of his life and the wisdom of his doctrine, though he be the last in the community.

By placing a stranger at our head in lieu of a proper election, Bishop Wilfrid had contravened the commanding instrument of our lives. Holy Rule is unequivocal: only in cases in which a community elects someone “who agreeth to connive in their evil ways” do grounds exist for a bishop to step in and “appoint a worthy” alternative. Allow me to assure those who read this at some future time that this most fundamental of rights was as jealously guarded in our day as I am sure it is in yours.

Still we had all sworn (or had sworn for us) vows of stability and obedience, and I suppose such an appointment, however irregular, might have been accepted with little grumbling had it not been for the fact that Godwin’s relationship with Irminberga, Ecgfrith’s new wife, was well known. Now in these unsettled times when comets appear to dance around the sun and Saracens march

through Andalusia, a brother might be forgiven for forgetting that our day had its own share of disorder and calamity. History alone must judge whether Wilfrid was victim or agent of the difficulties that beset his episcopate, I can only attest to the fact that, under his rule, the Church in Northumbria suffered a series of setbacks and dislocations from which it is only now recovering. Among the most severe of these of course were the hardships accompanying Irminberga's assumption of the title “Queen.”

For the sake of those too young to remember, I must point out here that Irminberga was not King Ecgfrith’s first wife. That honor belonged to Æthelthryth, a daughter of the king of the East Angles. Now it happened that, before she was given in marriage to Ecgfrith, this Æthelthryth had been married to a prince of the South Gyrwas who died before their marriage could be consummated. So it was that, when her betrothal to Ecgfrith was announced, Æthelthryth, though a widow, remained as yet in possession of her virginity. And did not care to lose it. So she told Ecgfrith, before they married, that under no circumstances, including marriage, would she surrender that which God had gone to such lengths to preserve. But, strangely enough, and despite the fact she was several years his senior, this declaration of Æthelthryth’s served only to increase Ecgfrith’s ardor. Not only did he marry her in spite of her stated intentions but, as the years passed and she persisted in them, refusing every inducement to enter his bed, the king’s desire for her is said to have grown ever stronger. In the midst of his torment, he turned for help to a man from whom he had every reason to expect loyalty and kindness. Bishop Wilfrid owed everything to Ecgfrith and his family. Oswiu, Ecgfrith’s father, had declared for Wilfrid and the Roman Easter at Streoneshalh, thereby winning all Northumbria for the Church and, coincidentally, rendering suspect most of the monasteries in the land. Once he had become bishop (thanks again to the Northumbrian royal house), Wilfrid removed all those abbots who refused to swear loyalty to Rome and replaced them with men of his own choosing. For the first time in the history of the land a bishop now held power over not only his own priests but all the

country’s abbots as well. Wilfrid had become a man of substance. He travelled in great state and maintained a sizeable armed guard. People said he was the second most powerful man in the land and whispered he was the first. And all of this of course, all of this including Redestone and Redestone’s steel, had been given Wilfrid by Ecgfrith and his family. The same Ecgfrith who now turned to him for help.

There are of course two ways of looking at the response Wilfrid gave his patron. His supporters claim that, in ignoring Ecgfrith’s legitimate claims and encouraging instead Æthelthryth’s desire to remain a virgin, Wilfrid showed himself a true follower of Christ, preferring, regardless of consequence, a straight and narrow path over that followed by the world. While his detractors would counter that the counsel he gave Æthelthryth (that she neglect the duty owed her rightful husband) showed Wilfrid willfull to the point of folly, providing his enemies, and the enemies of the true Church, with all they needed to bring him down. But, whichever camp one belongs to, surely no one can argue with the outcome. Æthelthryth showered Wilfrid with gifts of land and treasure, remained a virgin as he counselled, and, ultimately, was permitted to enter a convent; while Wilfrid and the flock he shepherded were thrown into a state of utter confusion and even tyranny. For Ecgfrith, while he may have consented to Æthelthryth’s desire to live out her life a virgin, made no similar provision for himself. After she left him, the king took a second wife, this same Irminberga whom I mentioned at the beginning of this account. Now Irminberga, as is the way with women, resented any reminder of her predecessor, even to the point of hating the man who had been the first queen’s counselor. So she turned the king against the bishop, filling his ear with tales of Wilfrid’s temporal power, the extent of his lands, the size of his buildings, the magnificence of his retinue. There would have been no need to mention Redestone. That Wilfrid held Redestone and Redestone’s steel (close by his border with Mercia) must have stuck in the king’s craw like a great and pointed stone.

The result of course was inevitable. Wilfrid owned lands the

king desired, he had cost Ecgfrith his first wife, and now his second detested the man. The bishop would have to go, his holdings, by default, reverting to the king. And this is of course what eventually happened. But it is important that the full story be told as well. Wilfrid did not give up without a fight. If Irminberga was the cause of his unpopularity with the king then that was the quarter in which he would attack. There was a cousin, wasn’t there, one of his priests, a man not known for his wisdom but pliable surely, ambitious, more than willing to be used? Yes, of course, that is the way, I will show preferment to Irminberga’s cousin. And what better way to allay the king’s concerns than to place him, at least nominally, in charge of the one place Ecgfrith most covets. Yes, yes of course, I will give him Redestone. I will give Irminberga’s cousin Godwin Redestone.