The View From the Cart (21 page)

My new friend, who said her name was Gunda, sat with me, content to remain silent when there was nothing further to say. I was not in a mood for chatter, and could scarcely think of more questions to ask. The dankness in the air and the wide high place quelled my spirit, so all I could do was sit close to the smouldering fire and hope that Cuthman was not being tormented by his captors.

A long time passed, waiting for something to change, or for some news to come from beyond the wall. The dog which had come to meet us that morning was cuddled against me now. I have always been easy and loving with dogs, and I was reminded of my own old favourite, dead a year or more by that time. This one had long bony legs and a sharp muzzle, which it used to nudge its way under my elbow and get even closer. I laid a hand against its thin ribs, and made it my companion.

‘They will not hurt him?' I said at last to Gunda, feeling it a weakness in me to ask.

She smiled, not quite kindly. ‘No, they'll do him no harm,' she said. ‘But he may find himself sore by the month's end.'

‘He will not do it,' I warned her. ‘They can never make him.'

‘His will cannot help him,' she replied. ‘We have potions to take away his will. Your son is simply a tool now. It brings no shame to him. He need never think of it again, after you leave.'

‘And I have guessed rightly? You wish him to sire new children? He is scarcely more than a child himself.'

‘We do not choose who comes here. He will do as well as any.'

‘How many - ?'

‘No more than a score. We need keep him just a month - or less. Our menses mostly happen around the same few days. We have time to prepare him. The time of real activity begins a sennight hence, or thereabouts. At the full moon.'

‘He will resist,' I repeated. ‘And nothing can keep him here a full month. We are on a pilgrimage.'

She looked amused at that. ‘Oh aye? Where might you pilgrims be going to, then?'

I wriggled at that, and began to fuss the dog. ‘Eastwards,' I muttered, feeling foolish.

She laughed aloud. ‘Of course. Christians always look to the east. Where their great Sun god rises, and their new Jehovah in the sky sits watching them.'

‘No sun god,' I corrected, horrified at what Cuthman would think of that. ‘The loving God, the only true God. He sees into our hearts and knows our deepest thoughts.' The words came trite and unconsidered to my lips. There was no feeling attached to them, nothing in my depths which echoed that they were indeed true.

‘He!' she spat, triumphant and mocking. ‘What good is that to us? What man can understand the needs of our hearts? Can you tell me that?'

And again I remembered the furious monk, accusing me of arousing him, invoking his punishing God to cleanse me of my wickedness.

‘There have always been gods, as well as the Goddess.' I began to grow angry. ‘Besides, you said yourself that the east is holy. It is where you situate your own temple.'

She inclined her head in mute acknowledgment. ‘And yet you have it wrong,' she said. ‘There is the Goddess above all others. Beyond and before them, every one. The very land shows us.' And she swept her arm in a wide arc, indicating the hills and pastures all around us, with the swelling rises like a woman's belly, and the sharper humps of young breasts. I could see it all as she intended me to, despite my clouded vision and my Christian raising. There was nothing of men out there, but the stumps of cut trees and the bones of fallen warriors.

‘But - ‘ I gave it up before I'd properly started. I could never argue on such matters. Christianity was our bounden duty, from the day of our baptism. We had to follow its decrees, whether we liked it or not. Ordinary country people might retain their old ways alongside the newer faith, and enjoy a moment's defiance of the Commandments, but these women on this hill fortress were committing untold wickedness, and I shuddered to think of it.

I tried to find safer matter for us to discuss. ‘Your music - ,' I began. ‘We heard the singing.'

‘Moon music,' she said. ‘We sing the moon back from its waning. And we sing the gardens into blossom, the sheep into bearing good lambs.' She stopped, and laughed. ‘You will discover it all while you are here. And I think at the month's end, you will not want to leave. Tell me now, about your damaged back.'

So I recounted the story of Cuthman's birth, and the searing pain. The gradual recovery until the miracle beside my little straw house, when I was close to cured. And then how Edd's dead weight brought it back again, and since that time I had not been right. And I told her about my cart and Cuthman's penance.

She stopped me there. ‘Penance
and
pilgrimage! Great Christian ideals, both of them. Penance for being born, is it?'

I looked straight into her face. ‘That, perhaps, but he feels he brought about his father's death. By committing a sinful act.'

‘Oh?' She read my expression and understood. ‘Oh!' And she laughed louder than ever, her head thrown back, mouth wide, as women seldom laughed, for fear they should seem immodest or uncontrolled. Though I was reminded for a moment of my mother against the hut wall with my uncle thrusting into her. It was an accidental witnessing that had tainted my early years more than I cared to admit.

‘Well,' Gunda spluttered. ‘The Goddess has surely brought us a challenge this time.'

I could not resist an echoing smile of my own. Something felt free inside me for the first time since Edd and I had set off up onto the moors with a few sticks of goods and a handful of sheep. Free and bad, all at once. Disloyal and yet
right.

‘And how does your back feel now?' she pursued the questioning. ‘And where is your cart?'

‘It feels stiff, but there is little pain now. I walk a little, but slowly and bent. I must ride, if we are to reach the place that Cuthman seeks before he grows old. He will know it when we reach it.'

‘And this is not it?'

‘No, Gunda. This is quite certainly not it.' And we both laughed until I felt ashamed of myself.

Night fell soon after I had consumed two full bowls of the broth. My belly hurt with the fullness, and I became drowsy and unable to speak properly. Gunda helped me to the ditch which was the latrine, and then made me comfortable on my bed of hay. ‘Tonight you will sleep, while we have our singing and such,' she said. ‘But we will not waken you before noon tomorrow, so you will be fresh for the next night. We will have much to show you, then. And have no worries for your boy. He is being well fed and rested, on duck's feathers and good linen. For many days he will be treated like a king.'

I dreamed of my son wearing a crown like the rays of the sun, great golden dogs at his feet and steaming piles of roasted meat on platters before him. But the woman who served him had the same terrible face as the woman in the hermit's pool; the murderer of my son in my earlier dream. She had followed me here, and I believed, in my dream, that I would never escape her. She would always be with me, until I allowed her into my heart, and listened to her message. Even then, I would fear her, and the harm she would do me. And once again, she was poisoning Cuthman, and seeking to bring about his death.

As promised, Gunda took me through the door in the wall at dusk the next day. I stepped through, and into a different world. Although still not fully springtime, there were flowers and bright grass. Evergreens such as ivy and yew grew lush and glossy, and wooden huts nestled against the dividing wall, well tended and weathertight. In an open grassy area stood a small temple, square with an open pillared walkway set all around it. The wood was delicately carved and painted with flowers and leaves. ‘They have your son in there,' Gunda nodded. ‘As comfortable as can be.'

‘Can I go to him?' I asked, with little hope.

My guide shook her head. ‘He sleeps mostly. When he wakes, he is given good food and rich drinks of milk and mead. He wants for nothing, I assure you.'

‘Except his freedom,' I fretted, anxious now that I was so close to him. It was plain to me that he would be angry that he was shut away like an animal. Angry and defiant and utterly determined not to yield to the women who imprisoned him.

‘It is just for a little while,' Gunda soothed. ‘And most men would surely envy him.'

‘I would think otherwise,' I responded, tartly. ‘Or you would have a line of them at your gate, all waiting their turn.'

‘Our reputation as heathens discourages them,' she explained, seriously. ‘And their priests threaten them with damnation if they come close. Even the shepherds send their wives and daughters to fetch in the sheep or move them to fresh pastures when they stray too close to our ramparts. Which is how we manage to steal so many of them when we feel the need,' she giggled.

Yet another Commandment broken, I noted. Sheep stealing was both a crime and a sin where I came from, rarely worth the risk of terrible punishment.

A distance from the temple, set against the southern edge of the fortress, was a large low building with a wide open door. Girls and women were assembling close by it, and beginning to go inside. I calculated that it was close to the point where Cuthman and I had first approached the walls, and from where we could hear the strange singing, two days earlier. Gunda led me along a neat stone-paved path, the stones all cut and shaped so their natural bluish-white interiors were exposed, and set in patterns along the length of the path. Everything was decorated in some way. The roof of the meeting hall had a thatch of woven grass and fine boughs, criss-crossed in an intricate design. But as a wind sprang up and gusted along the length of the hilltop, I saw how the eastern wall sagged, because there were scarcely any foundations to the building. A year of neglect and abandonment and the whole structure would blow away as if it had never been.

I leaned on Gunda's arm, as my back grew tired, and thought wistfully of my cart. Next day, I would ensure that it was made safe in some way, so that when we left, it could serve its usual purpose.

All the heads turned towards me as I entered the hall. I recognised the girls with autumnal-hued hair, and saw Enthia immediately, standing on a low platform with two other women. She nodded to me, friendly, but as if she had more pressing matters on her mind. Most of the girls were sitting cross-legged on the floor, and chatting between themselves. On shelves and ledges there were displays of flowers and woven baskets, a great profusion which seemed to have no purpose but to please the eye. Pieces of carved yew and woven hangings were fastened to the walls. The hall was lit with rushlights and candles made from muttonfat, and smelled of earth and grease and an aromatic oil I had never encountered before. I sat in a dim corner, with a piece of matting under me. Nobody was bothering to stare at me any more.

Enthia spoke, low and distinct, and everyone instantly hushed. ‘We are in the third phase of the moon, tonight,' she said. ‘We have our man, praise the Goddess for delivering him here. Agrude has a story for us, which I trust you will hear in patience, as it is her first one to the whole meeting.' She indicated the woman on her right, who was young, with a sharp nose like a beak and small darting black eyes.

Without further preparation, Enthia began to sing, her voice soaring high as a skylark, and as wordless. Others began to join in, and my head was filled with the unearthly sound. It brought visions into my mind of running rivers and secret forest groves and the power of creation. Sometimes one voice would scream or moan, threading the sounds into the song, as if giving birth or in great physical ecstasy. Once, the singing ceased abruptly, as if Death had passed over them without warning. Then it began again, ten heartbeats later, louder than before.

At last, the voices drifted into silence, and the women sat with bowed heads for many minutes. I could see that a girl about the age of my Wynn was weeping noiselessly, but most seemed utterly serene. My eyelids felt heavy, despite my long sleep, and it was an effort to form thoughts or properly perceive anything.

Then the beady-eyed Agrude stood forward, working her neck like a bird, forward and back, and fixed her gaze at a point some way above my head.

‘A woman, as wide as the earth, clothed in rippling, radiant, rainbow sunbeams, floating high in the sky. Her feet rest on the silver moon, full and glowing; on her head a glittering crown made from twelve of the brightest stars. And the woman's belly is huge with an unborn child, and her birth pangs are beginning, so she cries out. Her voice is like a howling wind in the skies, and all the creatures of the universe hear her. Even the great red dragon of the dark places hears her and comes out of his lair. He flies up to the labouring woman, and crouches below her, to catch the child as it is born and eat it up.

‘The dragon is a huge monster, with seven heads, each with a mighty crown. On every head are ten sharp horns, pointing every way. And his great thick dragon tail lashes as he waits, back and forth, side to side, and in its lashing it sweeps a third part of all the stars from their places in the skies, and dashes them down on the earth.

‘When the child is born, before the dragon can take him, the strongest of the gods causes him to be saved. The child will be a cruel ruler of all the earth's people, forcing his will on them with a rod of iron. He will grow up alongside the greatest of the gods, seated on a golden throne, and learn to be the master of the whole world. His mother, the woman who rests her feet on the moon and wears a crown of stars, goes away all alone, to live for many hundreds of days in a wild land where she rests and regains her strength.

‘And she ignores the great and bloody battles that the men and the angels of goodness and the angels of evil and the dragon are fighting across the skies. Great damage is done to the warriors, but finally the dragon is defeated, and sent back to his dark place where he brews all the pain and hatred and fear that the world suffers. The woman's child, which men call the Lamb, but who is more of a great and powerful lion, has added his strength to the fight, and now rejoices in his victory. But he has hard words for the people who live on earth, where the dragon can spread his misery. And he forgets the woman his mother, waiting and resting in her quiet fields and hills, using her own body to feed the plants and rivers, and teaching the world's women to trust the truth of their own knowing.