The Church and The Devils 4

“Father Owain, Aelfleda. I’m glad you’ve come.” Upheahric’s eyes did not stay long on Aelfleda’s face, thought the priest, but moved quickly back to his own. The elder smiled like a winter leaf would smile. His voice was wispy, as though chasing the clouds. “I’ve been talking – talking to, to Erderinca. She still hasn’t said anything. She sits and stares into the hearth. She sees – well, I don’t know and I won’t say.”
Father Owain looked with pity at the old man. There were lines of dark red across his face where concern had dug deep into his old skin. When he saw Erderinca, he was shocked at the similarities between her and Upheahric. Both had expectant faces, as though the patience of their lives was to be rewarded in old age even after Andred’s death. He could see her kneeling, nodding her head slowly as the flame-light moved across it. The air of the hut was dense and there was a smell of people, not entirely pleasant, hidden in the smoke. Father Owain tried to go in, but Upheahric’s shrunken chest banged against his hand and blocked the way. “Yes, kinsman?”
“I’ve spoken to her about God, once or twice, Father. But she does not want to hear – she – well, Father.”
Father Owain felt a swelling of pride inside him. He was aware of Aelfleda standing by him with her hand on her chest, but she was on the edge of his mind. This was the important thing. This, here, was what he had always longed to do, to prove the value that all the holy men had put on his head. This was a chance to convert a heathen unbeliever to the ways of righteousness. Erderinca had not looked round since they had come to the door of the hut. Aelfleda was asking now if something was wrong, if, perhaps this was not Erderinca in front of them but something else…
Nonsense, nonsense of course. The Word of God was to be made fully available to her for the first time. He stepped swiftly over the hut’s hard floor and knelt beside her, laying his hand across her shoulders. Only when his touch had come to rest on her bones and stretched overdress did she turn and look full into his face. A strange cry, like that of a wounded wolf, seemed to pour from her reddened eyes and she bolted from him like a hare from a hawk into the corner of the hut, knocking a stand draped with some of Streamas’ nets to the floor and over her hands. She scrabbled, afraid that she was trapped, but Father Owain came no closer.
He had forgotten! The passion of what had been offered to him had made him forget himself, and all that had happened. “God’s Word cannot always be easily come to,” he muttered. He looked at Erderinca’s frightened animal eyes before allowing Upheahric’s eyes to meet his. He took the old man by the elbow and took him out into the air. In the hot darkness behind them, Aelfleda covered Erderinca’s hair with her faded scarf, which had fallen under the falling nets.
“Is it true, Father? Can Aelfleda be right? Is Erderinca possessed?”
“She has faced something terrible, and it’s had an effect on her spirit. There’s darkness there. I can only try.”
“I’m afraid, Father.” Father Owain’s thoughts were still running on Erderinca. He didn’t answer and found Upheahric’s voice rippling against him like the water of the river. “I’ve seen my kinsman die a worse death than I have ever seen before and now his wife, my kinswoman, seems to be in the grasp of …something… In Edricsham, Father, they all left, even though nothing so bad as this happened to them,” He waved a thin hand in the direction of Edricsham. “It is punishment sent by God for our pride in staying here. Thane Berhtic has twelve hides of land. He would let us move to another one, if he knew what has happned here.” He stopped and began again brokenly. “But I can’t see why God should so hate us.”
Father Owain followed his gaze across the spread of well-built huts, the high, clear lines of the hall and the busy moving shapes of men, women, cheerful children and animals. Upheahric’s sweep took in all of Ediscum, but Father Owain stopped at the cross. “God’s ways are often mysterious,” he said slowly, remembering what he had said moments about the church. “But what is done in his name cannot be wrong.”
Upheahric looked at him, wide-eyed. The old man, his cloak lying uncomfortably across his shoulders, wavering like an ear of corn, was waiting for him to say more.
“Were you thinking of leaving here?” The priest demanded suddenly, in a louder voice. There was the sound of someone scrabbling on the floor inside the hut. “Of following the people of Edricsham? Of abandoning God’s work? After all the news we brought back from the bishop?”
“No, no, no, Father, it couldn’t be right, no, no I was simply asking, asking for your help in giving us strength in these troubled times. I have – I haven’t seen times like this before, since before God came to us and the other times went. Is he now angry with us for our pride in our kin, like Andred, Andred, Andred, Andred –“
He stopped as Father Owain rested trembling hands on him. “Let your spirit be still and God’s love will calm your heart. Do not forget the work that we have to do.”
“No, Father. I won’t.”
Upheahric looked up at him with a smile that pulled his lips tight against his teeth.

Aelfleda held Erderinca hard against her so that the widow’s bony shoulder pressed into her chest. Erderinca’s head lolled and her face was cold to the touch and slimy with tears. Her body did not move and Aelfleda feared once or twice that the breath had left it. Her fingers were locked tight together. Her legs were folded beneath the old woman’s and she swallowed again and again as a choking feeling rose in her throat. She heard Father Owain’s voice rise and felt the kicking of Erderinca’s feet.
If she had had children instead of being made barren through widowhood and the possession of property, she would have held them this way while the wolves prowled. This was not how it should have been! She shuddered. Father Owain’s voice had gone, and she felt suddenly alone despite this wretched body held close to her. She could hear Upheahric mumbling to himself outside. He would soon speak out loud to himself, in a guttural voice, and remember how it was when she was too young to understand. And Erderinca’s throat would keep beating in and out with that little noise like wind moving in a tree’s branches. Something hung in Aelfleda’s mind while she sat there in the thick heat of Streamas’ hut.
For some time, she couldn’t remember what it was and her head hurt as she tried to reach out to a thought that dangled out of reach of her soul’s fingertips. Then with a chill that ran deeper than the river’s water, but which was not so frightening, she remembered.
Figures were blurred, but they were running to and fro with purpose. On her mother’s shoulder, her fingers playing with the leather band that held a smooth orange stone around her mother’s neck, she looked over the cloth and plaited hair to where red, yellow and green clothes clustered like bees in swarm. The fire was hot and her face was singed by it even as the sun warmed the back of her head where her mother had pulled her hair tight. Her mother’s shoulders moved against her legs, the bones shifting with a rhythm that was matched by the movements of the figures and by the voices that seemed to come out of the air rather than from bodies. And here was her father, bending to kiss his wife and to touch his child on the cheek and to smile at her. Then he was gone again, but still in sight, moving towards the people and their voices. There was the smell of flowers from the fire mixing with the woodsmoke and the herbs and cooked meats. Rheda, Rheda, Rheda driven away with her fiend-dogs and witches and bats and wolves behind the rocky walls over the river. Frey, Frey, Frey, bringer of plenty, protect us with your lover Tiw. Let Frey touch the fields with fertile fingers. Her heart was beating in time, sharing the chant even though she was too young to understand what it really meant. Rheda go, Frey stay. She felt her mother’s head move against her belly, felt chanting, later laughter, shake her wildly.
Aelfleda’s head shot up in the hut’s close atmosphere like Streamas’ when he swam in the river, seeking air. Her chin had been resting on the top of Erderinca’s shoulder, which was still pressed against her. The old woman was calm now, her breathing quiet. Aelfleda slowly let go of her and Erderinca moved away, crouching, covering her eyes with the hood that had been so carefully replaced on her head. For a moment the younger widow watched the older and thought about how she had looked in the days when Andred and Upheahric between them had felled trees and, later, had brought the dry wood to the big clearing in the swine-woods. Could it be that the new God had brought decay, not life? Aelfleda thought of the joy in the faces of her father and mother, and ached for what she had not understood. Too late, now. Such a gathering could never happen again, and both Rheda and Frey had returned to their city.
Voices raised outside stole into her mind and startled her. There was noise and splashing in the river, and the laughter of men. She saw Andred’s widow shrink away as though her husband was listening too, in fury.
“Stay here, Erderinca,” Aelfleda said softly. She had not at first been able to understand what was happening. Now she remembered that Godric and the others had been to the city. With a quavering heart, she looked out beyond the cloak across the doorway, and blinked in the light.

Stanmode splashed through the cold shallows. His fingers were slipping on the stone and he didn’t want to be the one to drop it here in the sand where it wouldn’t be easily moved. Aethelsunne was next to him out of the five men and his face was bright red like his cloak. Stanmode worried less now. This young one would let go first. Still, it would be better if it wasn’t dropped at all. It wouldn’t make God happy if the first stone of his house were to fall in the river. They reached the shore at last and let the stone fall. It made a deep sound on the earth as it landed. Stanmode wiped the sticky sweat off his hands and looked round him. Men were sitting on the ground. They didn’t look as though they were eager to go back to where the boat was drawn up against the edge of the bank. He looked past Aethelsunne to Godric, who was kneeling with his hands on the stone’s rough surface.
“We have to get the others yet.”
Godric barely looked up. When he spoke, his voice was hushed. “Look what God has done! We should bring Father Owain here to bless this stone and this place!”
Stanmode shuddered. Too much had been risked with everything that had happened over the last few days. A blessing should be brought, but he didn’t want to think of the other stones sitting unwatched in that little boat. But Godric turned away and spoke to Straelsith, telling him to fetch Father Owain and Upheahric. Stanmode groaned. The stones were there unguarded! But there was nothing he could do. He sat on the grass and let his shoulders go limp. His mind wandered, of its own will, to other problems. Now that the stones were coming to the village, he would have to start thinking about binding them together. He didn’t know much about that. Their sharp tools had done well chipping away at the old mortar, but it was different when the chipping ended and the building started. He half-remembered a story Father Owain had told him. Moses… bricks and straw… Well, he would try and remember. There would be an answer and he would find it. He looked around himself again. Were those stones left in the boat just going to float off down the river? What was going on now?
Aethelsunne and Godric were talking about where they would place the stone. “Under the altar,” said Godric. “It’s right it should be in the holiest place because it was the first.”
Aethelsunne laughed and smoothed the arms of his rich tunic. “No, by the door. It was first, so it can be the first we step on.” He was smiling but Godric shook his head. If they had asked Stanmode, he would have agreed with the smith. Blessed things should go together. Things less blessed should go near the outside and things not blessed at all should be outside altogether. But then Aethelsunne was young and he liked his little cleverness. Let the priest decide.
Was that him? He blinked and looked more carefully. No, it was Aelfleda with a pale face. She smiled when she saw the stone, but not as happily as he had expected. She didn’t go near it, but waited outside the group of sweating men. Aethelsunne was getting to his feet, but Godric moved faster, taking her arm and guiding her towards the rock.
“Touch it,” he was saying excitedly. She did, without eagerness. Stanmode saw how her arm relaxed when the stone remained still. She smiled then, more warmly. Aethelsunne was there too now. Aelfleda moved closer to him, but Godric didn’t notice. His face was bright. He was talking about how high the church would be, and how wide. Stanmode liked to listen to him talk like that. It made him feel as thought the stones were built up in front of him. He would like to run his hands over the walls and touch how well it was built.
But here was the priest. Stanmode was the first of the men to stand. He was happy after all that there was to be a blessing, and he was even more glad that it had begun, so that there would be less waiting before the other stones were made safe. Father Owain bowed his head and everyone else did the same. Stanmode could barely hear the prayers, but it was enough that there were prayers. He looked up to see Father Owain make the sign of the Cross in the air over the stone and over them all. Stanmode nodded in approval. Then he shook his arms and prepared to lift again. But Godric was pulling at the priest’s arms and saying something –
“I felt it again in the city Father. I felt it, the Cross, looking at me. It’s a sign of grace isn’t it?”
And Father Owain was gripping him by the wrist. “If it is not a sign of grace, my son, there are none.”
Aelfleda was interrupting. Stanmode watched with satisfaction. She always knew when there was work to be done. But her words made him jump up and down so that men looked at him. “Father, isn’t it time Andred was buried? Now that the first stone is here he should be at peace.”
Andred! Why could he not be like other men and lie still? Even when you thought he was finally gone he would move again and open his separated eyes. But still, perhaps the sound of his name had been of some use. Godric was walking away from Father Owain with a cross look on his face. He came up to Stanmode and said, “We’d better get the other stones then.” Stanmode smiled. Then the smith added in a low voice so that only he could hear: “At least now Andred’s gone we can do our duties to God without abuse.”
“It’s good,” said Stanmode, suddenly not inclined to smile any more.

Nearby, Blithespracce was persuading a group of children that hunting for hen’s eggs in the long grass was better than throwing sticks at a lame sheep. But none of their noise made much impression on Aelfleda. She was going about her work in a kind of daze. She had done a lot of the tasks that her injuries had made unfamiliar. She had pressed clothes against stones in the clear upstream river water alongside Cnapa, whose hands were even redder than her own from the cold water. She had gathered garlic on the edge of the swine-woods, near where Leofa had picked comfrey and brown fungi for her to put on her wounds. Now she was feeding the goats in their pen at the back of the mead-hall with corn that had rotted when water had dripped inside one of the store huts She did all these things, but they seemed to lack any kind of value. The memory of Andred’s body shook the way she saw the world. His murder was different from all the death she had seen before. Father Owain had sat with her as he had done in the year of the sickness, but he hadn’t been able to settle her mind this time.
The warmth and roughness of the goats’ noses on her hands were far away. She was still lost between the ceremonies of the past and the blessing said by Father Owain over the stone. She was in a void and afraid. Neither God nor gods would save her because now she doubted both. God’s will would destroy its evil… but evil was still there – Andred’s body still lay in the hut, the first insects of spring passing in and out of its wounds and nostrils... She remembered the chants he’d still believed in that drove Rheda away. The smiles of her father and mother struggled against Father Owain and his cross.
She blinked and looked again. The bright light reflected off the metal had been visible for some time. She frowned and brought her mind firmly to where she was now. Yes, she could see it clearly, lying between the muddy hooves of the goats. They lifted their feet carefully over it and nosed at it hesitantly, making suspicious sounds in their bellies. It was a pick. It looked new-made because of the rush-made twine that bound the chestnut haft to the bright metal head. It was clean rather than stained by frequent contact with the ground. The whole thing was well made, clearly Godric’s work. She looked around, looking for some sort of explanation for its presence. There was none, and now the children had been led away there was no one to see her looking. She bent over the woven wattle and hazel rods of the fence around the pen towards the closest part, the tip of the blade.
But her fingers stopped short, just a little above the uneven soil. There was something about the way it lay there, so bright and clean. She didn’t want to touch it. She would tell Godric about it. The goats wouldn’t hurt themselves if it was there just a little while longer.
She began to walk back round the mead-hall into the centre of Ediscum, where she would be able to see the men, who were struggling with the stones. But as she did so, she heard a shout. Godric’s voice! She half-ran a couple of steps, then stopped, and listened to see if she could tell what was happening.

Godric was not angry. No, no, not angry, because these things are sent to test us. But he could feel sharp tears in his eyes and tightness in his fists. After Andred’s murder, after what Father Owain had said, he had hoped that setbacks like this were finished with. Yet as he paced backwards and forwards around the foundations of God’s house, he knew that the old gods had not finished yet. Almost every part of the faithfully dug trenches had been filled in. It had not been done with care – the earth was not packed down and it lay in dark patches all around on the grass this time and so would be easier to get out than it had been in the first place – but to have to do it all again!
He was aware of Stanmode striding around in his wake, and of the builder’s fury about to burst out of him, and of the other men sitting glumly on the stone they had brought. It would be hard to get them to work more today, and he glanced towards Father Owain, hoping for guidance.
But the priest offered none. His face was very still. Godric moved towards him, feeling earth lumps crumble under his shoes. “Father – “ he began.
“I have no words for you now, Godric. Your conscience must tell you what is to be done.”
Godric stopped. Father Owain’s voice was seized up, as thoug he was on the edge of despair. Godric’s feelings must be much worst for the priest. Without moving his head, he looked left and right with his eyes. No one else could have heard what had been said. “Father – my conscience says that we should rest and begin again tomorrow.”
“Yes, yes my son.” The priest’s voice was brighter now, but it wasn’t as strong as it usually was. “As your heart tells you.”
Father Owain shivered slightly and pulled his robe’s hood over his head. When his face was hidden he spoke from under the folds of pale cloth: “I am going to pray for us. God must stay with us if we are to succeed.” He turned his back on the smith and began to walk slowly away. Godric watched him, feeling uneasy. Evil had struck its worst blow as far as the village knew, but still it carried on. It was meant to stop. Godric walked back to the men, who waited with sullen faces.
“I have spoken to our holy Father,” he said and paused. “It’s best that we wait till morning. The work can wait till then.” He heard Stanmode grumbling, and went on quickly. “Father Owain… sends his, er, blessing upon you all.” He raised a hand as though to give the blessing himself, but them let it move more widely, dismissing them.
They stood slowly. One or two of them muttered to the others next to them. Godric did not hear. He began to sweat again and tried to say other words. He could not, and the men left, all except Stanmode, who looked at Godric’s reddened features for a long time.
“What’s wrong with Father Owain then?” he asked in his growling voice. He ran a thumb round the underside of his wide nose.
“I think – he’s upset by what’s happened. I don’t know.”
Stanmode grunted and let his heavy hand fall hard on Godric’s shoulder. Godric trembled but did not move away. “Well, he’s right. Nothing else to be done.” He squinted at where the setting sun sat low over the swine-woods. “I suppose nothing worse can happen here. Good sleep.”
His heavy body went quickly down the slope toward the smoke that coiled up from the huts. His wide shoulders were soon out of sight. Godric sat down beside the stone they had brought and put his head between the muscles of his arms. There he could smell himself, the grass and the dampness given off by cloth that had spent much of the day in the water. The familiarity of these things distracted him from the strangeness all around him. It was good that Andred could no longer deny him kinship. It was good that Andred would not stand in the way of the church. Yet – it was not good that men were afraid, that Father Owain –
“Godric?”
His head jerked upright. She was looking down at him with soft eyes but the lines across her brow were deeper than usual. Some of her dark hair had escaped from her cap and was curling down under her chin. Her face was dirty and – was she frightened? Evening had come faster than he had thought and all but a few of the day-birds had fallen quiet.
“I – I spoke to Aethelsunne, he said you were probably still here. He told me what had happened to the church. But there’s –“
Godric got to his feet. “These things are sent to try us.”.
She looked past him to where it was still possible to see where the good work had been undone. “That’s a good thought,” she said.
He watched her, and saw what looked like part of a cloud of worry rise from her face. Was it the light, or had that shoulder of her dress, yellow like autumn corn, moved closer to him? He couldn’t tell. There was silence between them while he looked at the shoulder and she gazed at his brow as it bowed towards her.
Then she said quickly. “I came to tell you. I found one of your picks in the goat pen.”
“What?” Forgetting himself, he looked straight into her river-water eyes.
“I was feeding the goats and I saw it. I didn’t know how it had got there, so I left it. I thought I’d better tell you.”
“Thank you,” He was looking away again, and pressing his hands together as though he was trying to mould one of Swefrith’s trinkets between them. A quiver had crept into his breath. “I couldn’t say how it got there.”
“No. But the goats might injure themselves. You should get it back.”
He wondered why she had not brought it herself. But then he remembered how her shoulder had moved towards him. “I’ll go and get it now. Thank you.”
She smiled too quickly and went down the hill. The colours of her clothes were gone. His eyes felt tired as though after hours of staring. He looked round the disturbed site of the church and sent up a prayer and a resolution to work harder the next day. That would be more easily done with another pick.
Though it was not far to the goat pen, the light was almost gone as he crouched beside the fence and smelt the animals. They scented him too, and one or two made plaintive noises as though he were offering no mercy.
“Those days are past,” he found himself muttering softly to them. The blade still reflected what brightness there was left in the sky. He reached out and brushed his fingers against a coarsely-haired leg. The rest of the animal knocked against him, bleating excitedly. There was the sound of many goat feet on the earth. As they moved away, he could see the whole of the blade clearly, a strong shape against the gloom around it. Godric tried not to think about the fate of the goats in the Last Judgement, but stretched his hand out a little further. The metal was very cold on his fingers. He gripped it tight and pulled until the whole of the long handle slipped over the top of the fence and fell to the ground. Godric stood and stepped away from the frightened goats. He let the pick lie on the ground for a moment while he used the last of the light to see where the blood on his hand, brought out by the metal’s sharp edge, was coming from.