Moyra Caldecott (8 page)

Bishop Aidan pointed out that the first part of the prophetic dream had come about, and it was now up to her to fulfil the second part.

‘What shall I do?’ Hilda asked Etheldreda. She longed to travel and to see her sister again. The monastery at Chelles was a centre of learning and culture. She would have the constant stimulation of people who had travelled widely and studied deeply, whereas at home she would have to provide the stimulation for the sluggish minds of those around her. But her admiration for Bishop Aidan was deep. Not to listen to his plea would be unthinkable. It had been his example that had inspired her to give away her riches and leave her home in the first place. He had come from Iona, his training in the tradition of Saint Columba and the Irish fathers to have no possessions, walking, even at his great age, over remote and windblown moors in every kind of weather, never doubting that he would find food and shelter when he needed it, never hesitating to give help and understanding to others.

She sighed.

Etheldreda took her hand and squeezed it. She knew that Hilda did not expect an answer from her.

Hilda had not long returned to the north when Bishop Felix died. Sorrowfully, on hearing the news, Etheldreda left the crowded environs of the court and went for a long walk in the woods. Her mother was dead, and now her teacher and old friend. She felt very lonely. She wondered if she would ever see them again, and if she did, how changed they would be. She could not imagine people she had known without their bodies. She tried to visualise it, but failed.

She sat on the stump of a tree and closed her eyes. She whispered a line from the psalm she had so carefully and beautifully inscribed in the scriptorium at Dunwich.

‘Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.’
[5]

The darkness behind her eyelids became blacker and blacker until she seemed to be falling into the most utter and complete darkness that had ever existed. She was afraid. If she was to have a vision she would have expected it to be of light. Was it the Lord of Shadow who had answered her prayer, and not the Lord of Light? And then she noticed that although she could see nothing, not even the little spots and imperfections that usually floated on the inside of her lids, she was intensely experiencing a vastness in which she was perfectly conscious, and that others were with her, whom she could not see, yet was aware of. Thoughts came to her, clear and powerful, as though she were thinking with the minds of others, better minds than her own. She knew suddenly and with great excitement that clarity of consciousness was not dependent on the presence of the physical body, but on its absence.

But even as she began to grasp what was happening and enjoy this new way of knowing… her body began to reassert itself and her eyelids itched to open. She fought to keep the experience, but it was already slipping from her. Her eyes opened and she stared astonished at the crowded visual complexity of the wood around her, the tangled green and vivid glimmer of sunlight that almost hurt her eyes.

She shivered.

By the position of the sun she knew that a great deal of time had passed since she shut her eyes. Yet it felt as though it had been no longer than a moment. She knew that she would never see her mother and Bishop Felix again as they had been, clothed in their curious sheaths of flesh, but it did not matter. She would be with them as they really were, and because she too would have sloughed her skin by then, it would seem natural.

‘How stupid,’ she thought, ‘to think that things can never be anything but as they are at the moment.’

Etheldreda took Heregyth and their two charges, Prince Aldwulf and Princess Withberga, to Kent to Easter with her sister. There she found a gloomy hush about the court, all the bright wall hangings of the great hall folded up and put away, and nothing but plain water served with the meals.

It was the children who explained it to the visitors.

‘My father says for forty days before Easter we must fast and pray as our Lord did before he was crucified,’ Princess Eorcongata said solemnly. ‘Otherwise we will not be able to share in the resurrection.’

Etheldreda raised an eyebrow. They too kept the Lenten fast at home, but the whole court did not take on this air of dark desolation.

She looked at Eormengild, Saxberga’s eldest daughter, and saw that she had a bored, petulant look. It was clear the Lenten fast was an imposition on her from outside and was doing her no good at all. If anything it was driving her further from participation in the resurrection. The boy Egbert seemed indifferent to it and went his own way, pretending compliance when anyone was looking, breaking the rules when he was alone. Eorcongata seemed to be the only one in tune with her father’s thinking.

‘You see, it is very important,’ she explained to Etheldreda, ‘we have to empty ourselves of everything that is of the physical world in order to make way for the spiritual message God gives us at the crucifixion. If we look at it with the eyes of our body we do not understand it at all. We have to look at it with the eyes of the spirit, and then it all makes sense and is very beautiful.’

Etheldreda smiled. The girl was right. How wonderful to find such sensitivity in one so young. But – and here her face darkened as she looked at Eormengild – but the emptying must be from choice, not from imposition. What harm was Eorconbert doing to his eldest daughter? What harm to others of his people? She determined to speak to Saxberga about it, meanwhile suggesting that Egbert and Eormengild should accompany Heregyth and the younger children to the woods.

Eormengild’s eyes instantly lit up, and then darkened again.

‘That would be enjoyment. We are not allowed to enjoy ourselves in Lent.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Etheldreda sharply. ‘There is no quicker way to God’s heart than to enjoy His works with love in your heart. The forest is full of His Presence. Go and be with Him.’

The children looked so uncertain and uneasy about what she had said, that she laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll speak to your father about it. I’m sure he will understand. Sometimes I find I am closer to God by enjoying a new leaf with the sunlight shining through it, than I ever am in my chamber on my knees.’

They needed no more encouragement.

They were away, Eorcongata as eagerly as the others.

At Easter, on the day of resurrection, the release from the harsh discipline of the forty previous days was wonderful to see. Flowers and garlands of leaves were brought from everywhere to decorate the little stone church, the preaching cross on the green and all the houses. Children wore flowers in their hair and even Eorconbert wore his grandest, most colourful clothes.

After the singing of the praise and prayers at home Heregyth suggested that they ride into the country and see how the country folk celebrated. She had been finding the Kentish court oppressive and longed for the good times she and her friends had had at Easter when she was a child.

The royal party set off joyfully, even King Eorconbert relaxing and smiling at last. Etheldreda had been surprised at the change in him since she had seen him at her sister’s wedding. It was as though the godless libertine days of his father Eadbald had so scarred him as a child that he was determined to devote the rest of his life to imposing their opposite.

The day was bright and light. Etheldreda rejoiced to hear the children chattering cheerfully again. Heregyth had suggested that they change into simple clothes so that they would not inhibit the locals with their royal presence, and they had been happy to do so. On more than one occasion they were pelted with petals.

The afternoon was nearly over and they had decided to turn back, when they saw a procession in the distance and agreed to witness this one more event before their return. The children cried out with delight when they found that the procession was headed by a beautiful decorated cart, on top of which was a chair under a canopy, the curtains hiding what was presumably a very important person. Its progress along the lanes and over the fields was a noisy one, everyone singing and dancing and playing music. At each field it stopped and the canopied chair was taken from it and borne over the field on the shoulders of the slaves who had been pulling the cart.

‘Who is in it?’ cried Eormengild, her eyes shining.

‘It is an old custom,’ her mother said. ‘The people used to believe that it was the Earth Goddess herself who rode in the cart, and she was going to give her blessing to the fields so that they would bear good crops. Now they know there is no Earth Goddess, but we still let them do it to keep them happy, otherwise they would blame us if the crops failed. The priests tell them it is the Virgin Mary and she is giving her blessing to the fields.’

‘Is there a beautiful lady behind the curtains?’

‘No.’

‘Did there used to be when it was the Earth Goddess?’

‘There never was an Earth Goddess. The heathen priests used to say they “felt” the presence of the Goddess at certain times and the superstitious people believed she was there. No one ever saw behind the curtains.’

The procession was becoming noisier and noisier, and before they could stop them the children and Heregyth had climbed down from their horses and were dancing with the farmers and the villagers. The royal adults followed at a little distance, sometimes amused, sometimes embarrassed by the antics of the crowd. One hairy, bearded youngster had dressed himself up as a woman with a great deal of straw pushed into a bag over his belly so that he seemed very pregnant, and was swaggering and staggering about, pouring strong ale alternately down his own throat and over his neighbours’ heads. Some youths and young girls were actually making love in the fields.

Etheldreda could see that Eorconbert did not really approve of what he was seeing, but remembering that Pope Gregory had told the English missionaries to tread carefully where old customs were deep-rooted, and rather transform than abolish them, he was keeping himself in check.

The sun was almost setting when they finally reached a lake and Eorconbert told Saxberga to call the children back because the festival was over and they had a long ride home before dark. It took a bit of time to locate the children and in that time the whole character of the light-hearted festival had changed.

Etheldreda sitting on a small knoll looking down at the scene, at first was surprised to see the cart and the slaves walk straight into the water, and was then horrified to see that when the slaves had sunk the cart in the water and were trying to walk out again, some of the men from the crowd, dressed in strange outlandish garments, which she later learned were the garments of their shamans, rushed in with whips and beat them back and forced them under the water.

Those who had not been expecting this began to scream. Only the older people did not seem surprised.

Eorconbert, when he grasped what was happening, suddenly gave a roar and kneed his horse to a gallop. Like an avenging angel he tore down to the lake swinging his sword, the water churning up around him as he beat back the shamans and freed the slaves. Unfortunately two were already dead, but the others struggled to the bank terrified and shaken.

‘Lord in Heaven!’ gasped Etheldreda. ‘What is this?’

‘The children!’ shrieked Saxberga.

They could see Eorcongata standing by herself at the lake edge, drenched by the water that was flung up in the scurry, screaming with horror. Eormengild was running towards them. Young Egbert had rushed in beside his father and was beating at one of the shamans with a stick. The others, Aldwulf and Withberga, were safely with Etheldreda. She held them close, as Saxberga and Heregyth rushed to gather in the others.

As Eorconbert pulled one of the shamans out of the water by the scruff of his neck, the man turned on him a fierce and ugly face.

‘A curse on you, profaner of the mysteries of the Goddess. No man may live who has touched her chariot. Plague strike you down and all who love you!’

Etheldreda, weeping, made the sign of the cross.

‘Oh Lord,’ she whispered. ‘Oh Lord! Oh Lord!’

On the following day Eorconbert ordered the destruction of all heathen idols in his kingdom and the absolute abolition of the slightest heathen custom.

‘We have been too lax,’ he said. ‘Always compromising, always trying to accommodate the old ways no matter how they conflict with the new. People have taken advantage and misused this freedom.’

‘Sometimes things are difficult to understand,’ Etheldreda said sadly, a little shocked by the ruthlessness with which Eorconbert’s thegns were carrying out his orders. ‘You forbid fortune telling by dreams and signs, yet in the Holy Book there are many examples of God speaking to man through dreams and signs.’

Eorconbert paced about impatiently.

‘If my people could distinguish between the dreams and signs sent by God and those foisted on them by unscrupulous charlatan sorcerers, there would be no problem. For years we have given them the benefit of freedom and they have misused it. I have to take a firm stand now or we are lost.’

Etheldreda said no more, but she feared Eorconbert’s over-zealous nature might destroy much more than he intended.

Chapter 8

The vow

The summer of 651 was a turning point for Etheldreda.

It started quietly enough with the usual round of hospitality at court, the giving of gifts to new friends to buy their loyalty, and to old friends to keep their loyalty. There was much speculation as to whom the young princess would marry. At twenty-one years old she was already long past the usual age for marriage. She visited France, spending time with her eldest sister Ethelberga, her step-sister Sathryd, and her aunt, Hereswith. The people speculated that she would also visit the French court and perhaps make a marriage alliance with a Merovingian prince, but she returned to Rendilsham as beautiful and as unattached as ever.

Living at the monastery with her sisters had renewed her interest in the monastic life and she came home determined to make arrangements for her release from her court duties. But there always seemed to be something or someone preventing her taking the final step.