The Church and the Devils 5

Aethelsunne told himself it was the things Swefrith made that kept him fascinated. The ornaments all seemed to have perfect shape and the metal in them caught the light in a way that pleased him. He’d been traded some things for Swefrith in the market next to the new abbey. It was sad to see the things taken away, but there would always be more.
“Are these what made Father Owain angry?” he had asked, lifting a goblet up to the fire’s light.
“Do you think it’s good?” said Leofa, looking over Aethelsunne’s arm to where he brother sat moodily stirring the fire with a long stick.
“Yes, I do. I don’t really know why he thought they weren’t, though he must have had his reasons.”
“Well, yes, I suppose so.”
“It didn’t feel like that at the time.” Swefrith stood and went outside.
The other two looked at each other and smiled. Aethelsunne knew he’d told himself a lie. Leofa whispered to Aethelsunne over a bone ring set with a green gem while her brother went round the outside of the hut picking bits of straw out of the hut’s thatch where they had come loose. She told him how her brother was confused and afraid, and how she sometimes woke in the mornings to find him gone before dawn to the river. She had said that she was worried about him. Aethelsunne wasn’t really listening. He was wondering about what Aelfleda had said to him about Leofa, and how much he agreed with her. Leofa had rich brown hair, her skin was quite smooth, and her eyes were pretty…
But then, no matter what Aelfleda said, Thane Berhtic had spoken to him about women, and he supposed that he was meant to marry one chosen by Berhtic. She might do as well...
But Leofa was known to him, and she was from his kin and his kin-land. He could tell exactly how she would take the ring from the palm of his hand. She would ask him again if he liked it as much as he said he did. When he answered, she looked at him as though she knew already how much. He looked into the colour of her hair and thought of it covered by a hood, as a married woman’s would be. He found the idea hard to imagine; he was too used to it as it was. Then Swefrith returned., and they quickly looked away from each other.
“I’ll go,” Aethelsunne said at last, getting to his feet and ducking under the low beam at the side of the hut where they had been sitting. “Aelfleda will have spoken to Godric now.”
Swefrith stood to see his friend out into the night air. Over his shoulder Aethelsunne could see Leofa looking at him with a smile. Aethelsunne looked away and took a deep breath before leaving.
Aelfleda was sitting on a low stool as he pushed aside the cloak over the doorway. As always, though he’d tried to persuade her to get one of the unfree women to do it and save herself some work, she had prepared food for him. There was a smell of vegetables in the air. She greeted him and reached into the pot suspended on the stand above the fire’s red heat and handed him one of Swefrith’s bowls full of spring herbs, carrots, parsnip and, he was sure, a few fragments of meat left over from the feast. She told him what she had found in the goats’ pen. He made a face.
“Strange.”
“There is something strange happening, Aethelsunne.”
“Well, yes. I’ve heard people talking about asking Thane Berhtic to let us move to another hide of land, like the Edricsham people.”
“Upheahric’s been saying that. He misses Andred. But Godric said that we have to live through the test we’ve been set.”
His sister’s face was hidden by shadow as she looked away from the fire. But she seemed thin, worried. “What do you think, sister?”
“There is danger – Why was Andred killed?”
“Andred was a heathen,” he broke in quickly. “Might it have been evil taking its own? Or God having his vengeance? You know how much he opposed the church.” He stopped, suddenly unsure of himself. “Although it’s not something Father Owain has said.”
Aelfleda didn’t reply. She stood up from her stool and walked across the earth floor to the leather pail of water. She bent over, the flames seeming to become part of the yellow of her dress. Aethelsunne bit the crust of gritty bread she had put next to his bowl. There was the sound of splashing and she came back with a wet face. As she sat down, she picked up a pestle and mortar from under her stool and began to grind some dried leaves. The sound of bone grinding on wood underlay her words.
“Andred’s death was terrible. Have you forgotten what kindred is?” Her voice was sharper than he ever remembered it. He bowed his head.
“I’m sorry. But the only time I’ve seen wounds like that before they were on a heathen man on the battlefield I told you of before, when we beat Penda of Mercia. This was after the battle when we bore the bodies off the field. Perhaps that’s what happens to them all. God takes their souls and their blood.” He spoke quickly and he was ashamed of the nervousness he betrayed. But he went on. “I remember, once, when we were carrying the body of a warrior back to our camp just inside a forest, one of us slipped and the body fell onto some rocks on the path. He had bled before he died, like Andred did, but the wounds he got from the rocks did not bleed at all. Very strange.”
Aelfleda stared at him over the curved rim of the mortar. She frowned and looked hard at him.
“I’m – I’m sorry. I think about it too much, perhaps. Or,” he added, “Not enough. Say something, sister, I’m filling God’s air with stupid things.”
There was a long silence. Aethelsunne patted the crust of bread on the cooling stew in his bowl and felt the heat from the fire grow.
“How is Leofa?”
Aethelsunne shifted in his seat. “She’s well. Are you asking me about marrying her?”
“Perhaps.”
“I don’t know. When I was at the new abbey I could imagine it. I could think of us getting married in the church when it’s built –“ Aelfleda twitched her dirty hand. “– but now I’m back, I can’t. I keep expecting things to be as they have been, like if I dipped my hand into the river it would still be cold. And so much has changed – even Upheahric, and now Andred’s gone. He was always here. I think of how it used to be when we were little and he was always around. I suppose things changed then, too, but I didn’t notice. So I don’t know. My heart’s eager for Leofa, but only if nothing that happens makes anything different.Building the church will change things, but if the church isn’t built – What do you think, sister? Aelfleda?”
She wasn’t listening. Her face was tight like a pigskin stretched out to cure. Aethelsunne reached out to her, touched the moving arm that held the pestle against the crushed leaves, but it didn’t seem connected with her. Her mind was far away from him. He sat back and watched her. He cursed Andred and his spirit.

“You didn’t tell him I go out at night did you?”
Swefrith was leaning over her, and crumbs from the crust of his bread fell onto her dress. She could see them, grey against the red cloth. The seams around the shoulders were cutting through her undertunic and into her flesh. Her brother’s face was very close and Leofa could see where the smoke from the fire had blackened the creases around his eyes and mouth.
“Why? Is it important?”
He was frightened, she thought, and angry. But he didn’t remain looking at her eyes. He shifted his gaze to her shoulder. “I know you think he’s worthy to be trusted, and you’re right, sister. But there are evil things close to us and they won’t go away for all Father Owain, Godric and the church can do. Edricsham had a priest too. There might be danger if you talk about me going out at night. Andred’s spirit, at least, is still around.”
His voice was hoarse. She felt strange, unsure of him. She directed her sight to the skin of his eyelids and their thin lines of grime. Below them, she could see the wetness of his eyes.
“If it’s important, then I won’t speak of it. It shall be as you say, brother.”
“Thank you,” He raised his head and she saw a smile riding on the frightnened current of his face. “It’s getting late.” He yawned and stretched his long hands above his head. “We should sleep.”

Rattling. Like sticks beating on sticks, or a fire. Slowly, unwillingly, Aelfleda opened her eyes. On the other side of the cloak over the door it was light.
What was that? She raised her head with effort and looked hard at the feeble brightness filtering through the cloth. She was right! Something was moving there, a flickering shape. Now the rattling again. She breathed in sharply and her hand, tangled in the blanket, jerked upright, towards her chest. But she stopped and listened. It was not rattling. It was a hard rapping, concentrated, wood on wood. And a voice – Upheahric. He was breathing heavily, gasping out her name. She threw off the blanket, then stopped. Shivering as the cold air began to press against her shrinking skin, she stretched out a pale hand.
“Upheahric?”
He answered with a sound similar to her name.
“Wait. I’ll come out.” She grabbed at her clothes, which lay on the end of the bed, their colours weakened by the darkness. She pulled them over her head and felt them fall against her legs. Aethelsunne, lying under his long cloak, had not stirred. She could hear his breathing. Upheahric had not spoken again, but she could see his shape casting a soft shadow on the cloak. She moved towards him, but stopped, breathing in the damp smell of the thatch. For a moment Andred’s image filled her mind. But it was Upheahric, her oldest living kinsman. She pulled back the damp cloak and stood blinking in the daylight while Upheahric, his eyes glaring with fear, croaked out what he had to say.
“Aelfleda – Erderinca got up and went out this morning. I followed her. She wept, she went… to the place where Andred died. I spoke to her. I tried to bring her back, but she wouldn’t come. She smiles when people say your name…”
His hair was curled up against his skull and the side of his mouth was wet. There were last winter’s leaves on his knees. Aelfleda shuddered. But her pity was still bound up with fear. She remembered him at the heathen harvest-fire when she was young. He had stopped speaking and his eyes in their folded sockets looked at her strangely while she cleared sleep from her face. She wavered.
But she couldn’t refuse his pleading. She looked down at his bent head. Spirits or no spirits, she would do as he asked. “I’ll go and bring her back. But I’ll go alone.”
He was about to move towards her, raising his stick slowly, but her words stopped him. His body drooped, but he smiled mistily. “If you think it’s best.”
“It wouldn’t be good to have too many of us go to her. You know how afraid she is.” The words came hurriedly. She didn’t want to make him feel mistreated. “I’ll bring her to you.”
“Yes, my dear.” Then he raised his head and spoke in a slow forceful whisper. “God go with you.”
“Thank you.”
He was still the only other person awake in the sleeping village, though a few hens had begun to peck about near the huts. He was still watching her when she glanced over her shoulder on the edge of the woodland. She thought of the wetness at the side of his mouth and quickened her steps, unsure whether she was going because she was afraid or because she loved him.

Erderinca sat in a circle of pulled-up grass stems. Her head was bowed but her hands ran here and there like rats, yanking again and again at the already torn blades. She was some way from where the earth was stained by the blood that had come from Andred’s body. The grass there was still bound into ragged clumps. Aelfleda carefully skirted the cursed space. It seemed as though even the mists of her breath would not cross it. She reached Erderinca and rested a hand on the tightly-woven wool on her shoulder. The old head jerked up with a snarl. Aelfleda heard bones crack in her neck. It was a few moments before the hard eyes could see her clearly and the snarl twitched, weakening. At last she recognised who had come to her, and smiled an old, yellowing smile.
Aelfleda sat beside her, fighting an urge to cry out into that face. She was reminded of a story that had been told when she was younger, of a woman whose relatives had plotted against her. That woman had been doomed to while away the dawn hours beneath a low-hanging oak, just as Erderinca was doing. Perhaps Erderinca too saw her husband staring across a great gulf, longing for her as she longed for him. Aelfleda thought of Andred’s spirit, still here, staring towards his wife.
“Erderinca, you should go back to the village. It’s too cold for you here.”
The hands did not stop moving and the smile did not change. Aelfleda crouched and tried not to hear the words being whispered by the new leaves on the trees.
“Did you hear me, Erderinca? You should go back.”
Erderinca still did not hear. The trees stretched in all directions, and seemed to have learned tricks from the stones in the city. Aelfleda looked over her shoulder to make sure they were not moving closer.
Erderinca did not feel the creeping sensation but pulled at the grass, sending more of its green smell up into her nose. Aelfleda sighed. She would wait a while. It would do no good to drag the poor woman away, and even less to awaken the gods by disturbing their peace.
After a little while her fear faded. It only disturbed her in little tremblings, when her thoughts slipped back to the sounds of voices in the trees. In other moments they wandered around the clearing, noticing the way branches folded over each other and grass moved when the breeze struck it. She gazed either side of the pool of blood-crust and saw the marks of men’s feet where they had gathered to stare and carry away the shattered body. The grass was still bruised and the soles of shoes had pulled out the earth from under it. She could see the path the villagers carrying Andred’s body had taken through the trees. The leaves of bushes had been broken off and here and there was the whiteness of broken wood. She saw all the ground around where the people of Ediscum had stood and looked, and then all the ground nearby.
She blinked, once or twice. There, in front of her, the ground was disturbed. It was only in one place, but it looked as though one of the villagers had slipped and fallen. There was a line of brown earth, and patches of soil that peeped out from under flattened pieces of grass. No one had fallen over during the time she had been there, and she had stayed until the body was carried away. Perhaps Straelsith or one of his companions, chasing a pig – but who would dare come close to this place? Were the marks made by Andred himself, stricken by terror in his last moments? That thought made her grip more firmly onto Erderinca’s shoulder. The old woman did not appear to notice. But then – she did not, could not, think that her kinsman would have fallen from simple fear. The scars he had on his arms told of times when not fallen in the face of terror. What did that mean?
Without thinking, without breathing, she got to her feet slowly and moved away from Erderinca towards the little patch of earth. She gazed at it: the flattened ridge of earth on the side closest to the blood made by the toes, the heel’s deeper impression at the other end. Other marks scarred the earth near it, more like those left by the villagers. She examined the trampled earth carefully. Yes – these were footmarks made by a falling man.
Erderinca had stopped pulling at the grass, she realised. There was a deep quiet. Aelfleda looked at the old woman, who was now sitting quietly, her head shawl in a crumpled heap on the ground. Then she saw the bushes behind the widow. Broken bushes, like the ones along the path the villagers carrying the body had taken. But who would take such a path? It led through dense trees and plants twined up around thicker stems. Even a lost wanderer would think twice about going that way.
Erderinca watched her as she left the footprints and moved towards the bushes. Some of the wounded branches were not broken – they had been cut by something sharp, metal. She remembered how she had seen part of… it… hanging on a twig. She searched and found what she had seen. Then she saw another, and another, these pieces shorter but still damp with dew. She watched her hand reach out to touch, then take them.
The hanging things were wool, dull red like that of the cloak over the entrance to her hut. Her eyes felt wide, her heart rattled in her chest, beating against the rest of her. The blood-hardened cloak and tunic they had cut from Andred’s shoulders had been two different shades of blue.
When she turned to face Erderinca again she could feel that her face had changed. In her mind, too, things were not as they had been.
“We must leave here.” She seized the old woman’s hand and felt the thinness of the bones beneath the skin. Erderinca was willing to move now, and she followed Aelfleda along the path her husband’s body had taken towards Ediscum.