The Oblate's Confession (45 page)

It can only have been about a week or two later that I began to pray in earnest for the destruction of Bishop Wilfrid.

Those were hard days, dead days. We quit the abbey in darkness each morning and returned again in darkness each night. After only a few days of this it began to feel as if winter had come early that year, the sun already retreated from the sky. Of course I still tried to pray as Father had taught me but even there (as if Godwin’s hand reached every sphere of my life) I now found difficulties I had not known before. The months leading up to our new abbot’s arrival had been good ones for me, among, I now realize, the best of my life. Since my initial success by the Meolch, prayer had become as natural to me as eating or breathing. I had only to sit and close my eyes to feel the Presence, to know myself unalone. And, as Father had predicted it would, the practice itself had had its effect upon me. Even when I wasn’t praying, a part of me, however

unconscious, knew myself
attended
, felt and responded to the Spirit that is, of course, with us always. Everything became easier for me. Issues that had troubled or even defeated me, seemed now minor, unimportant. I found myself praying for Ealhmund again, not because I thought I ought to but naturally, fervently, with a devotion that approached true affection. And wherever I went, whatever I did, God seemed to take pleasure in surprising me with His goodness, His comeliness, the grace of His presence.

And then Godwin came, and Father Hermit and Modra nect were taken from me, and it was as if I had fallen into a deep dark pit from which even God’s light could not pull me. I went from bed to furnace and back again and the soot and dust of the yard clung to me like the soot and dust of that pit. Morning and night, whenever time allowed, I tried to pray as Father had taught me and all that passed before my eyes were images of Maban and Godwin and the evil Bishop Wilfrid had done me. I would shake my head, close my eyes, try again, and always, within moments, the anger,

the unhappiness, came floating down my river like flotsam after a storm. Where before my prayers had been bothered by thoughts of food or sunlight or Eanflæd, now it was only Wilfrid, Wilfrid and his minions, that cluttered my waters. I could not believe I would never see Father Hermit again and I could not fool myself into believing I would see him again. Desire and reality had become irreconcilable. And when I prayed for help, asked God for a miracle, begged Him to change Godwin’s mind, I prayed to an empty hall. God had abandoned me. Everything I had ever known, trusted, or loved had abandoned me.

Everything, that is, except Ceolwulf. For now, as he had not been for many years, my father was with me again. Ceolwulf and the promise I had made him rose up within me, rose up to fill and conquer the space left vacant by Agatho, Gwynedd, Dagan, God. I stood at the bellows and watched Victricius, the petty anger he gave in to so easily now, and I thought of Ceolwulf, his strength, the strength I had of him by birth, and I despised the furnace master, despised him for his weakness, his failure to run away, chase after Agatho if that was what he wanted, his failure to confront Godwin, confront his enemy, rout him as Ceolwulf would, as my father would. I knelt in church and stole glances at Dagan, still near the front but oh so reduced in stature, the little man down on his hands and knees before his own usurper, before the men who had stolen his title, his rights, our church; and I despised him, despised him for his acquiescence, his easy capitulation to treachery, and again I thought of Ceolwulf, his strength, his anger, and the secret I held deep within me grew warm and full, warming me like a bowl of warm soup on a cold day. And, finally, I sat in Chapter and watched as one monk after another scraped and bowed before Maban’s little puppet, and I swore I would never submit, that, bow as I might, it would mean nothing, that the outward signs of obedience I gave would be like Godwin’s signs of piety, a hide, a camouflage for true intent. Let Wilfrid’s servant beware, a son of Ceolwulf stood in his hall.

One wonders how many such homunculi our cloister nurtured in those days. Pride begs me believe there would have been
several but, many or few, I have only myself to answer for. Looking back on it now, and considering the state of my soul at the time, it can only have been thanks to the force of Father Gwynedd’s warnings that it took as long as it did for me to act.

It was a day like any other as I remember it, late afternoon, warm, overcast, Vespers still a little way off. Probably everyone else was asleep, or in church, as it was the Sabbath. I remember that well, the fact that I had picked the Sabbath, my sense of the occasion demanding a little drama, the opportunity for withdrawal afforded by a day of rest, the holy day, the day set aside for communion. Though a part of me doubted anything would happen, doubted all prayer now, I had taken no chances. Father Beorhtfrith had heard my confession and, except for the Host, I had received no food since the night before. It was easy to slip away. If anyone had seen me entering the furnace path they would have thought nothing of it—I was, after all, Victricius’s boy—but no one saw me. The garth was empty, the church door closed.

I will admit to having been a little uneasy when I got to the spot itself. Despite all my unhappiness, the place still held meaning for me. I could not look at it, or the slabs of rock along the opposite bank, without remembering what I had experienced there, the certainty I had felt. I glanced back down the way I had come, fearful lest anyone should have followed me, and a sudden chill ran down my back, made my flesh crawl. But there was no one there; I had not been followed. And I told myself I was a fool if I thought this place was different from any other. It was just a rather uninteresting bend in the path I walked every day to and from my work at the yard. The hill people thought the rocks on the far bank were part of the skeleton of a great giant, but everyone knew the hill people were nothing more than superstitious fools.

I sat down. Though I had not intended to, the place evoked such a strong desire in me to pray as Father Hermit prayed that, almost despite myself, I closed my eyes, crossed myself, tried to become calm, tried to replace the river that flowed before me with the one I hoped as yet flowed through me. For a moment, a certain expectancy came over me. Could it really work? Was the
power of this place, its associations, so strong that God would visit me again, come to me as once He had, come to me as I so needed Him to now, to hold and comfort me, to set my worries aside, hold them at bay, protect and love me as only He could?

But of course there was nothing. Within moments the urgency of my need, coupled with the clamoring of the problems that occasioned it, swept down my river in wave upon wave of self-pity and disgust. Maban looked down his nose at me, called me a “little idiot,” and Father Abbot and the entire chapter laughed and laughed, pointing at the little fool where he sat upon his river bank, eyes squeezed shut, trying desperately to keep out the light, ignore the obvious, his impotence, his lack of cunning, the utter absurdity of his plight.

When I opened my eyes I almost laughed. To think that I had expected it to work! Such prayers were a delusion, a delusion created by the needs of men like Father Dagan, Father Gwynedd, men obsequious and retiring, men incapable of action, of
doing
anything. I was no such man. I was Winwæd, son of Ceolwulf. The river I was named for, the river that ran through me, rolled over its enemies, rolled over its enemies and sucked them in, pulled them down. I closed my eyes, thought about the wrath of God, thought about its dwelling place high up on the mountain, the great lake of wrath glowing with heat, seething, and I thought about the wall that holds it there, the flimsy barrier erected by God Himself to keep us safe, safe from His fury, the legitimate fury that caused the bush to burn, blinded the Aramaeans, struck the pagans deaf and dumb. And I pulled it free. With my prayer I reached up, took hold of that flimsiest of barriers and, with all my might, I pulled it free, the barrier coming apart in my hands as easily as an old and derelict wall, God’s wrath spilling out, pouring down the mountain in a white-hot flow, like the flow that sometimes poured from Victricius’s furnace, like iron, like steel. And the molten steel of God’s wrath poured down the valley and through my gate and, like a great and burning sword, it pierced Wilfrid’s bridge, pierced his bridge and everything—bridge, boards, stones, bishop—burst into flame, burst into flame and as quickly burned away, burned

away like grass cast into a hot and fiery oven.

When, finally, I opened my eyes again, it was with an obscure sense of relief that I saw that everything was as it had been. Nothing had burned away; the river ran as quietly as before, the trees still bending toward it, the rocks on its far side still dipping their lower parts in its shallows, still blushing at its touch. I stood up, feeling a little ashamed of myself, embarrassed by the strength of what I had felt. Lightning had not flashed, thunder did not sound. The sky remained intact, however overcast, the afternoon warm. And doubtless this was how it would always be. I would continue to pray for Wilfrid’s downfall as my father had directed, but nothing would come of it. I would live out my life at Redestone in compliance with the Rule and the vows made for me, and probably nothing would come of that either. I might as well get used to the idea.

The world looks upon us as celibates, doesn’t it? When someone from beyond the wall thinks of a monk (and I don’t fool myself that they do this often), they think first I believe of chastity, and then, most likely, of poverty, thinking, as all men do, of those things they hold most dear, those they cannot imagine giving up, would least like to lose. But we know better, don’t we? Chastity and poverty are important of course, but what makes a monk a monk, and—more important—a monastery a monastery, are the vows we take of obedience and stability. Sins of the flesh, sins of avarice, these can be easily forgiven, but what can be hoped for from a monastery where open rebellion rules, or, worse, apostasy unrules? Without monasticism’s two great pillars, obedience and stability, the entire edifice comes tumbling down.