The Church and the Devils 6

Why had she gone back? She had returned Erderinca to Upheahric’s old hands. She should have gone and woken Aethelsunne and told him what she had seen. It was his business, as a thane’s man. She should have gone out into the village to do her day’s work and left him to go to Andred’s grave. But she had gone to retrieve Erderinca’s shawl, which still lay in a crumpled heap. She had seen it lying there as she left! And she had not picked it up! But she had to return, to see again what she had seen, before she shook Aethelsunne’s shoulder to whisper to him that no devil killed Andred – it was a man.
The earth still felt cold through her shoes’ leather soles. Branches still stretched out across the path. She moved these out of her way with care. But as she stepped into the clearing, her gaze was dragged from the blue cloth of the fallen shawl by a movement on the edge of her vision. She bolted backwards, a deer surprised by hounds. A man – here, when she had only just identified a man’s marks where the blood had been spilt. But she recognised those falling locks and those shoulders tightly drawn up against the neck.
“Swefrith! What are you doing here?”
It was his turn to bolt, then turn with wide eyes and a pursed mouth. He spread his fine long hands out to her. “I – I was just – I wanted to see – I was afraid –“
Her arms were folded against her chest. She could feel her breath rising and falling quickly, but at the same time there was a tight frown on her face. “It is time to leave the dead to themselves, Swefrith. Didn’t you come here for any reason?”
“I – I wondered if it was possible for God to show us his mercy,” He smiled fleetingly and jerked his arm at the scene. “After this murder – he’s angry, I’m sure, and he hasn’t protected us, and there are other gods.” He smiled again. “Perhaps he will grant us all forgiveness in the end”
“Perhaps, Swefrith. But think about what Father Owain has taught us – ‘You shall have no other God but me’ – don’t you know your Commandments?”
“Oh, I do, I do,” he said, turning away from her. “But I remember other commandments too. The ones we used to have before”
“Don’t think of them,” she replied, more sharply than she’d meant. She’d married a man who remembered different Commandments at different times and she still had no patience with people who did that kind of thing. “Don’t think of them. Will you come with me to the village?”
“Would Father Owain feel other gods here?”
“Not he would not. Father Owain is a holier man.” While he was turned away, she moved quickly and picked up the fallen shawl. She did not want him to see the man’s marks she had seen.
“I’m afraid, Aelfleda,” he said more quietly. “What have we angered?”
“Only God can know, and he will protect us, I know. Come with me back to the village.”

“Look out! Fool! Idiot! Coward!” The water slapped against itself as it filled the gap made by the falling stone. Godric dropped to his knees so that the river slopped up to his waist. The chill of the water cooled his anger and it gave way to weariness.
Stanmode was staring at him with a shocked angry face. He wasn’t used to being called names. But he had let the great grey weight of the stone slip off the side of Streamas’ boat and into deep water.
Godric sighed and got to his feet. The sound of water draining from his clothes rose above the noises of the river and the trees. There had been a lot of progress today up to now. Using the ropes they had brought to drag the stones, they could tether the boat to themselves as they moved along the riverbank, climbing painfully round the smooth trunks of the trees overhanging the water. No one had to be in the boat, and so now they could move five of the bigger stones instead of just three. The problem was keeping everything steady as they crossed and the current pulled at the boat’s heavy weight. They had succeeded twice with stones they had cut free the day before. Now, as the light in the sky showed that morning was nearly over, there was this misfortune. Thanks be to God that it wasn’t the whole load on the river bottom. Many men would have felt more aches in their hands if everything they had so slowly chiselled out had sunk. And what of the boat? He pressed his fingers to where the sliding edge of the stone had cut a groove into the side. Only one or two slender strips of beech came away in his fingers. He raised his eyes to heaven. No damage. Thanks be to God.
“Let’s get these others onto the land.”
This was not easy. Feet, too afraid of wrong steps, slid off stones and mud and into water with great clapping splashes. Fingers, gripping too tight, gave way and men even half-caught the heavy weights on their knees and bellies. When the remaining four stones were safely ashore, Godric watched the tired faces of the men who were with him. He missed Aethelsunne’s steadiness. Was he going to come and work today?
Still, that stone was lying in the river. “Straelsith, can you get down to fallen stone? Perhaps we can pass ropes under it to lift it.”
Straelsith gasped. He was frightened by the though of putting his head at the mercy of the cold water. Only Streamas did that. Godric frowned but didn’t speak again. He stepped into the water himself, took a deep breath of the fresh spring air, and plunged below the surface. The chill beneath his hair and against his chest startled him and he could barely stop himself bursting back into the air like a rising bird. His fingers scrabbled; he could not open his eyes into that coldness. Stones, softness that churned up against his fingers – now, here, a hard edge leading straight down – He tried to follow it to where it rested, but the water was pouring into his ears and his lips were letting air little by little out again. He surfaced and stood blinking in sudden light with his chest heaving. How good it was to breathe openly again. But now there was another shape beneath the water – Straelsith, shamed into action. Godric grunted deep inside his chest. The boy was a good one. The young man’s head broke the surface and gasped for air. Shining droplets ran down his cheeks and into his mouth.
“It’s resting on something,” he gasped. “Feels like a cloth.”
Godric reached out an arm and pulled the boy to his feet. “You’ve done well. But how can there be a cloth? No matter – can you pass a rope under it?”
“Only to lift one side so another can go under.” Straelsith was grinning. “That’s what we need to do.”
Godric felt his heart beat heavily as he prayed that no harm would ever come to the boy. To see that would be too painful. Such a thing could not be God’s will.
“You sure, lad?” Stanmode had also stepped into the water and was bending over where the water billowed over the stone.
“Yes, Stanmode.” Straelsith looked to Godric.
“The boy’s right. Let’s begin. There’s plenty more to be done.”
“If you say so,” Stanmode shrugged and stretched out a hand for the wet rope, which he then passed on to Straelsith. “Be quick.”
It was soon over. With all the men pulling the stone moved quickly. It knocked against the wood of the boat with a dull noise, but it did not fight and soon it lay next to the growing pile of stones on the bank.
“It’s beginning to look like the city has come to us,” Stanmode said brightly.
No one laughed. The stone gleamed with river water. But its shining surface had something on it that had not been seen before. “What’s that?”
Stanmode was crouching his bulky body down next to it. A thick finger hovered over marks in the side that faced up at the patchy clouds. Godric, feeling his skin moving on his face and hands, hurried forward in his sodden clothes.
“It’s a charm,” someone muttered. “A giant’s spell. We’ve brought it here.”
Godric crouched, then stood, and stood still, swaying. He swallowed, but could not fix the shape of the carved marks on the stone’s upper side in his mind. “It’s God’s will,” he said hoarsely. “God’s will be done. Remember what Father Owain said.” His voice became stronger. The thrill of the faith he felt when the Cross had come to him had returned. “He said that what we do will defeat evil. No matter what happens, we will be victorious.” But still he could not fix the shape of the carved marks in his mind. He thought of all he had done for the church, and he shuddered. Straelsith’s voice, clear in the silence around the stone, made him feel no better.
“I was right! It is a cloth!” Godric turned and saw the boy, seemingly as delicate as one of Swefrith’s crushed-glass beads compared with the stone’s ugly carvings, holding a mass of what had been red cloth. It was faded so that the colour only remained in folds where the water had not done its task in full. It overflowed from his arms and hung dripping down to his knees. From one corner a bronze brooch still dangled. But Godric had no longer to gaze, for Stanmode, with quick strides, had gone to the boy and pulled the cloak from his arms. It bulged and flapped in the air, scattering water in heavy fat drops onto the river before falling with a smacking sound. The folds followed the shapes of the waves above and below them. The cloak turned slowly in the current. Then it was out of sight, drawn round a grassy bend in the bank by the current, drawn down by the river.
“There’s danger in finding things like that,” Stanmode told Straelsith with an unfriendly face. Straelsith looked to Godric and the wind made his hair stand on end. Godric could do nothing. If Stanmode hadn’t thrown the cloak back, he would have. There was danger. He looked again at the carvings on the stone. Father Owain should be called.
As he thought this, he heard dogs barking and the sounds made by frightened animals in their pens. A cry and a groan went up around him. He looked round, unsettled. Some men were pointing with despairing fingers. He saw. There was smoke rising from the village. Not the gentle hazing of sky made by cooking fires, by which a wandering man could tell when he was in reach of a village, but the heavy pall he had known well before his wandering days, in the time he was a warrior. Around him, men were running forward and back, eager to act, afraid of what they might be unable to stop. Godric cursed the stone and prayed.

The smell of the burning of Andred’s hut still hung over Ediscum. The stronger winds that had come with the night had done nothing to drive it away. The people and the animals that had been let loose during the day had been misted over by the hanging pall. He wondered if even this would make them think again. Some of the people had wrung their hands and cried out “Why is it happening?” He had felt his anger well up inside him then, though he had not looked at them. The reason lay in many things – in the building of the church, in Andred’s death, in the work that he was now doing. He bared his teeth into the wind and tasted the ash that still floated between here and the charred sticks that had been the hut of Andred and Erderinca. The flames had been mighty things, he thought. They flew like birds when pieces of thatch lifted from the falling roof. They ran up and down charcoal rods like ants when the fire was more advanced. Sometimes they moved their hands like corn in the wind. The sight excited him, made him feel that tonight he should do again what he had done before. He wanted to go over to where the embers beneath the dull ash and bright charcoal were still hot and pull out Andred’s skull with its coating of blackness that got under the nails like earth. He would leave it dangling, grinning from one arm of that bright Cross. There they would all see it; they would kneel, afraid, and think.
He wanted to, but he dared not. The chill of the night air made him shake more than his fear ever could, but he was still afraid as he took long careful steps across the village. He knew that the ground where the buckets had been passed along the villagers to fight the fire was slippery, but in the dark he could not tell where it was. He trod carefully. It would be terrible for him of he slipped and fell and that sound brought the moving aside of a door cloak and a light, and voices, and discovery. Yet to tread too slowly was to spend too long in the open space where any eye could spy on his back, or challenge him.
At last, his hand lightly touched the clay-coated wattle of a hut. Two more steps and he would not be seen… except for there, where he knew there was a hut. Let them not stir, he breathed to himself, and he was glad that the wind made noise and that the stink of the burning blocked the noses of the dogs kept by the swineherds. It made him quiver to think of the burning as beautiful and good, because only the men who ran quickly to kill its children had stopped it conspiring with the wind to destroy the whole village… all except the stone church…. It stung his eyes too, even though it had been dead a long time. The sting of tears pained him and his chest felt ash-like as though he too had been part of Andred’s pyre. He smiled to himself in the dark and let the ash settle on his tongue. The fire had been beautiful and good, and now he was about to make the work it had done even more good.
Now he was behind the huts and, the place of the church was in front of him. He could hear the sound of the river on the other side of it and the trees between it and him. His breathing, ragged before, was now tight. In his hand he carried a strong staff of wood he had taken with him on another of these night journeys. He gripped it firmly like one of the old charms and he felt the roughness of the bark bite comfortingly into his hand.
This was the moment of true fear. He had done no work yet, but if he was found here he could only be doing one thing. He knew that even at this hour one or two villagers might be awake, lingering in the blackness. He could name them. They had made him swallow his breath and hide like a beaten dog on nights before this. If they saw him there would be many things they could accuse him of, finding him here of all places.
It must be over. He ran forward a few steps, confident that his feets’ noise would be deadened by the longer grass. Here was the place of the church. It was so dark beneath the trees that he had to get on his knees and go forward feeling with his hands. The grass was flattened here – he was close. This was the edge of the holes where the stones were to be laid. Leaning on his stick, he got to his feet. His head was bowed – it felt as though branches were hanging low to strike him. Carefully, carefully, he moved, listening to the stillness of the village with ears that seemed too small to catch the sounds that might lead to his betrayal. Here should be the pile of earth – Yes! He touched its softness with the end of his stick. No tools had been left this evening – they had all been taken to help deaden the flames and break apart things that burned into smaller pieces. He used his hands to fill the holes in.
But the work was hard. The earth was cold on his skin and his hands could carry too little. The pile of earth had grown solid too, through days of abandonment. After a while his wrists hurt him and the spirit that had been in him seemed to be leaving. He straightened his bent back and clapped his hands together – lightly, in case the village’s ears were listening – to knock the worst of the dirt from them. In the dark he breathed in the hanging smoke and thought.
Yes. Here, with the sound of the water close, very close, he would do his night’s work. He crept the short way to the river bank and felt where the edge was clear of reeds. He let his hand slip though coldness until it knocked with a faint sound against the edge of the boat. There was enough room. With steps that seemed too quick to be part of wakefulness and not a dream he went back to the stone and his stick, which he had leaned across it. He could not see, but he could feel the giants’ spell carved into it. The grooves were precise, sharply cut by a delicate if monstrous hand. He liked the feel of it. He was glad it would be this stone. They would stare in horror. They would whisper to each other about another time when a stone was rolled by a mysterious power from where it had been left. This thought made his back tighten with a new fear. Perhaps it was dangerous to laugh about that. It would not do to anger another god by making this moment too close in his mind to that of his Resurrection.
Well then. It was best to do it quickly. It had taken many men to move it this far, but he had the slope on his side. He eased his stick under the sharp corner of the stone, pushing against the upper weight of it with his foot. It moved. The sweat sprang out on him, but the stone with the spell was moving.
There! Some water splashed up against his legs.
For a brief moment he stood and listened to the sound of the restless water slapping up against the side of the boat. A soundless laugh rose up in his throat. Then he ran, before lights emerged from Streamas’ hut and fists were beaten against wood to waken the others.

Aethelsunne stood in front of them, swaying to and fro as his voice rose to the hall roof.
“My kinsmen, this is a terrible thing to have learned…”
At the back of his mind he wondered how Thane Berhtic and the other fyrd-warriors would look at him if they could see him. The clothes he had worn to Ediscum were not quite so rich as they had been, though they still stood out against the coarser weaves of the village. Over the last few weeks he had felt his old self rising out of the behaviour he had taken on as a warrior and a thane’s man, but he could still command men’s attention with his voice.
“I cannot say whether everything that has happened here has had the same cause, but I do know certainly that it was no demon that killed our kinsman. It was a man.”
He stopped and breathed in deeply. The smell of the burning of Andred’s hut still hung in the damp air. The faces on either side of him were lit by daylight from the doorways at each end of the hall. He sensed that the women of the village had laid down their work and gathered quietly at those doors. He couldn’t tell if they believed him, but he cold examine the men’s frowns.
It had taken him long enough to believe. When Aelfleda had shaken him awake that morning, he had been more afraid of her than anything else. She told him about what she had seen and about the pick in the goats’ pen. She reminded him of the dry wounds he had seen on other dead men. She showed him the marks in the soft ground under the trees and the threads she had pulled from the sharp twigs. And still he tried to tell her to think about Father Owain’s words about devils.
When they had found the stone with the carvings sunk in the river again, he alone in Ediscum wore a grim smile. He pointed to where it sat in the water and asked his sister if that did not prove Father Owain’s words.
She shook her head under its woollen cap. Father Owain’s words were not made untrue by what she knew. He had said that there was a great evil to come before the church. That evil could come from men, not just from spirits. Father Owain had been right, only not in the way they had all thought. Slowly, as he looked round the village and listened to her explanations, he began to believe her.
But when she asked him to tell the village he had one last doubt. “Who could have done it? Who was awake and walking around at that time in the morning?”
“You were.” He flushed red and looked away from her gaze.
Now he waited for the villagers to reply. He could see that they had thought through what he had said – if it was a man who killed Andred, he could only have come from Ediscum. He recognised the coldness they suddenly felt in their backs and he saw heads move slowly to look at those next to them, then hurriedly look aside as eye met eye. There was a moment of silence.
“A kinsman slew a kinsman, you mean?” Upheahric said into it.
“We are not all kinsmen here,” Swefrith responded sharply, his clear voice harsh against the old man’s dry-leaf sounds. His finger moved suddenly to mark Godric out from the shadow by the wall. Aethelsunne watched Swefrith’s eyes. For once, they were firmly fixed.
“I am your brother in Christ if nothing else,” said the smith. “But if I’m not your kinsman then neither is Father Owain. Do you mean to point at him as well?”
Swefrith dropped his hand and his eyes. He flushed, but Godric was shaken too. Words kept coming out of him, though he didn’t look as though he wanted them to. “I remember that Father Owain had words to say about you and what you are in this village.”
Aethelsunne raised his hands to bring back the silence again. But Father Owain spoke first.
“My brethren,” his voice was soft and the intonation caught the ear strangely. “We are enjoined to love one another and to be patient. Aethelsunne has only just spoken. We must think carefully about what has been said. It could be that our noble kinsman has been deceived. To kill a man is a hard thing to do. We must ask ourselves if we can to believe this tale.”
Aethelsunne flushed, but the priest’s words did calm them. He bowed his head slightly towards Father Owain.
“Even if it is true, why would Swefrith kill a man who, if we believe Godric, felt the same about our church as he does?” Straelsith’s youthful voice made Aethelsunne feel worse. He knew that what he had said had been terrible for the village to hear, but he had not thought about what would follow. Now each man saw his neighbour differently – if he did not kill Andred, could he have done? And somewhere in that ring of faces, he was sure, behind one pair of eyes, the man who had butchered Andred was thinking of how to hide himself away.
He saw Father Owain’s hands come out from under the heavy folds of his robe. “Why indeed, my son,” he said, softly still. “Why should a man kill another, even if the soul of the man he kills had turned from God? We must continue our work and pray for guidance.”
“And we must not let it split us apart.” Aethelsunne stepped forward again. He looked at them all with confidence. “We were chosen to build the church together and alone and we will find this murderer together and alone. I will lead in this.”
“But shouldn’t we tell Thane Berhtic?” Streamas asked doubtfully.
“What more could he do than send one of his men to find out what he can? Surely he would send me.” He spread his hands out towards them. “I was sent to help in the building of the church, after all.” He smiled, to show that he didn’t act out of pride. “I will do what needs to be done.” He turned to Father Owain. “And I will pray for guidance, Father.”
Father Owain did not return his smile.

Father Owain had come to a decision. The villagers did not want to fetch the stone from the river. It had lain under the water since it had been pushed back in. They had even taken to landing the boat bringing other stones a little further up the river. But it had to be moved. Father Owain would bless it again once it was on land, but men did not want to touch it before he had. They would touch it in the end. Too much had been done even to waste this one stone. How could they be afraid when they knew what they were doing? They knew far more than those that bore the spear that pierced Christ’s side. Father Owain folded his hands and waited while Godric brought the men to stand before him in a half-circle. Their faces seemed sullen this morning. Aethelsunne had undone much good work with his talking about Andred, and even he had a grim face. But they would believe again. Father Owain had done everything he could to make them believe until now. He would go on doing so while his strength lasted.
It would also help Godric to forget what Aethelsunne had shown them on the end of that pick they had got out of the goats’ pen. He could have sworn that Aethelsunne had been smiling when he ran his finger along the otherwise clean twine at the head of it. The movement had brought up little shavings that were a red-tinged black: blood that had dried between the coils of twine. Godric and Father Owain had looked at each other over the bright metal. The priest had seen Godric’s face go pale and thought he was about to speak, but nothing was said. Aethelsunne let the pick fall to the floor. He let his eyes move from one side to the other of the ring of faces.
“Well, I think we can agree that this was what was used to kill Andred. Unless there is anyone who wants to say no.” He glanced quickly towards Father Owain. The priest frowned, but let Upheahric speak.
“No, no, it seems as you say, Aethelsunne. I wish it did not.”
Since then, Godric had hardly spoken and the work he had done on the church had been with a heavy air. Father Owain could not think of how to make him come alive again other than by helping him forget all that had been done. Godric’s thoughts had to be conentrated on the church again. Aelfleda had to be made to stay away from the site too. Though Aethelsunne had not said, it was plain that he had learned to say what he had from her. The dourness in Godric’s face only grew when she was nearby.
Father Owain gathered his robes about him a little more. He knew what he was going to do, but he still felt gloomy. After today’s work was done, Aethelsunne meant to examine every man in the village about what had happened during the night and morning that Andred was murdered. He wondered if he too would be examined. He looked at the flowing river and shuddered.
He lifted his head and looked again at the men moving round him. They would move that stone from the river. Aethelsunne’s questioning was not the only reckoning that was to come and the only things that would help a man before that other Judgment would be his actions in life. He raised his voice and clapped his hands together. Heads turned in obedience.