The Church and the Devils 1

There had been flames, but he was himself again. His hand was gripping the top of a ruined wall and he was looking up into the grey folds of the sky. Abruptly, he sat down on the hard ground and took a deep breath, gathering his memories of who he was and where he was.
He was Godric the smith, and he was somewhere amongst the stones of the old city between the villages of Edricsham and Ediscum, his home in Berenicia, Northumbria, in England and for fifteen winters he had not been a heathen but a Christian. The feeling of his heart in his chest was as it normally was. What had happened? He closed his eyes and remembered…flames again. As if he had been far above the land, and seen the flames across all of it, and he had been one, burning around the edge of other things. That hadn’t been all of it, though. There was something else, still beyond the reach of his thoughts. He opened his eyes again.
How had he come to be here in the city? This was not the way back to the village – no paths led here. In front of him a piece of wall rose up, far above his head. On each side single stones jabbed out, black against the sky as though they had been burned. But the other walls were grey and brown, untouched by the flames. He felt as though he should lay his hand on them. Then they too would turn the colour of ash. His hands though, also looked unchanged. He pulled at the hem of his blue cloak, but the thick cloth and long stitches along the edge were always as they had been. He had not burned.
But he didn’t know how he’d come to be here, and if he closed his eyes again he remembered the flames. He had changed, but there was no change to see. The flames had crept across the land, but nothing around him was burned. He had seen – something, but there was no picture in his head of what it was.
He stood up again. By the light through the clouds he could tell that night was coming, and the old city was not a place living men were meant to be in. The old gods, now devils, Rheda and Tiw, had been worshipped here and the giants, their slaves, who built the walls had left spirits here to summon the unwary to Hell. He shuddered, and promised to say a prayer of thanks once he was free of the cursed air of the city. They’d lured him in but some miracle had spared him.
He remembered! An idea of it had been floating round his mind and now he decided it had to be true. His heart was beating madly, and his legs shook, rooting him to the spot. It had been a miracle! He had seen – he had seen – a vision of holiness! The flames were angels, he was sure of it, and one had entered him. In time, change would come bursting out from his chest and spread across the village and the rest of the land. And in the midst of the angels he had seen the Cross. If he thought hard, he could see its image again. His skin began to burn and he knew why he was gripping the cold scaly stones. The change would come from inside him, and its goal was to rule these stones and purify them, so that Rheda and Tiw would be cast back into hill, and with them would go the souls of all those who still followed their rites.
Heat consumed him and he staggered from one jagged wall to the next, drawing blood on his fingers, but always aiming for Ediscum, where everything would in the end be transformed.

Aelfleda was finishing her work for the day, driving the last of the farrowing pigs into their pen near the long hall, shooing dogs and children out of her path. Normally Swefrith would have done this, but he’d claimed that the market in the bishop’s town wouldn’t wait for the brooches he was making while he chased pigs around. One of them broke loose and darted off towards the woods. Aelfleda closed the wicker gate behind the others, feeling the joints in her knees crack, and turned to give chase. The animal squealed in fear and bolted off to the left, disappearing quickly despite its swollen body into the dense growth beneath the mass of trees.
Aelfleda jumped and pressed her hand high up on the middle of her chest. Things like that were terrifying after dark, no matter what Father Owain said. There was a shadow coming from the gloom of the woods. By the curve of the tunic over its body and the tightly bound cloths on its arms and legs she could tell it was a man, but his face was hidden. Her hands instinctively reached to raise the hem of her long woollen dress so she could run more quickly. But then she saw Godric’s round shoulders coming out of the shadows and she let the pressure of her fingers ease. She lifted the cap she always wore over her hair to let out the heat of her surprise.
“You could have caught her!” she shouted irritably.
He didn’t answer, but ran on towards her. As he drew closer she saw the look in his eyes and clutched her over-tunic closer. She wanted to ask him what had happened, but she was afraid. He reached her, and placed his big hands on her trembling arms. His face, usually so round and unlined, was distorted by an expression she could not fathom. But the long knife he carried was still in his leather belt, and he did no more than press his hands against the cloth on her arms.
“Aelfleda! May the Lord be thanked!”
“Why – what?”
He stumbled at first over his story, being so out of breath, but soon words were flowing from his tongue in torrents.

He had set out that morning for Edricsham, the only other village within a morning’s walk, past the old city. It was a winding route, full of loose stones and slippery turns, moving in and out of stands of trees that hugged close to the windswept hillside. It was cold and it was a long way. He had been prepared for the distance, he hadn’t expected anything out of the ordinary – but it had happened! Look – he’d forgotten the staff he had taken with him. The people of Edricsham were leaving that day. Thane Berhtic had granted them permission to move at last. They were all moving on further down the river to another of his hides of land. Well, they’d had to, after all these years of bad harvests and the sickness that had taken hold amongst them. He’d heard, he wanted to buy anything that their smith could not carry – there was nothing very good. The old man had traded most of his tools over the last few years to keep himself and his wife alive. The last useful things he had left he’d sold to the traders who came through before spring, on their way to the bishop’s town and then the coast.
Godric went there in the daylight, gasping in the damp air, hauling himself up steep slopes, resting aching feet on the roots to help him up and onward, his hand on the staff growing hotter. His gown had grown heavy and the water ran down his face. He spent some time in Edricsham, wandering to and fro between the low huts where people were gathering or discarding clothes, tools and ornaments. They often looked towards the city, he noticed. It was fear of that place, in the end, that had driven them to leave their homes. They were moving as early as they could in the year, in the time between the shearing of the sheep and the lean times of the summer.
Godric had been afraid to look at the city. Its stones broke out of the ground in unearthly shapes – the work of giants decayed by mighty fates. To look on it in that village, where the foul vapours it gave off had found so much evil to do, might have invited ill-luck.
When the time had come for him to turn for home, Godric had done so with a nervous heart. A thin mist had followed the rain down from heaven and his tunic had clung to him. He was close to the city sooner than he had expected; the mist made the distance shrink and hid Edricsham when he glanced back. In the grey light the stones had seemed to shift, to creep round him so that they gathered close in archways above his head, and walls formed to his left and right, only to fall back into ruin as soon as he turned his eyes to them. God had laid waste to this mighty race, whose buildings outlasted those of the men who had been given the land afterwards.
“Did you see their ghosts then? Is that what it really was?” Aelfleda asked.
No, no it was not that – that would be evil – could he have encountered evil and returned? No, no, not ghosts – angels, he said, angels appeared to him as he was drawn where even grass and flowers dared not grow. There were angels – more than he could count, and amidst them, from them a glorious Cross rose up, decked with jewels. It was a vision, and he’d seen salvation. He’d been given the knowledge that Ediscum was to be blessed – blessed by a holy church of stone taken from the wreckage of their forefathers.
Aelfleda had not dared ask the question that still lingered in her mind as she watched him tell his tale to Ediscum’s free men. Was he sure that what he had seen had been a sign from God? Perhaps, in a place like that, it had been something from another god, the god of the land before Christ had supplanted him, the god her own father and mother had known, who surely wasn’t yet dead, not while he could hover in the old city, tempting fearful strangers. That god was still worshipped by some in the village. Aelfleda shivered and hoped that that worship would be enough for it.

The tale was finished. Godric’s eyes fell to the broken grass stems that lay in dirty piles at the edges of the hearth. His cheeks were burning and his jaw ached. Now he stood with his head bowed, hands by his sides. It had not been such an effort to look up while he had been inspired by his story, but now he was ashamed. Father Owain’s robes were the only part of the priest visible to him, standing out among the legs bound with different coloured cloths. He watched the tan, swinging hems, hoping for support. But it was not the priest who broke the silence, it was Upheahric, the oldest man in the village, and who had been one of the first to accept the new faith when it had come ten or so winters ago.
“Godric, this is good news.” His voice was hoarse as though he had been speaking and not the smith. “But to build a church –“
“God’s will must be done,” interjected Father Owain. “If it is God’s will.”
The British intonation of English drew all attention to it, though Father Owain, the second priest Ediscum had had since the first monks come from the abbey by the sea, spoke softly. He regarded them all with severe eyes from under his black tonsure. Aelfleda shrank back and out of the doorway as he spoke. She didn’t want to be embarrassed by smiling too proudly at the priest’s words. She had come to hear what the men had to say about what had happened to Godric, especially Father Owain. His choice would be her choice, because he was a holy man, as she often found herself saying to him. He had kept her faith alive many times in the past. He would know if this were devil’s work, as he called the doings of the old gods. If it were, he would protect them as he’s always done. She moved back into the firelight to listen again. Father Owain was addressing them all.
“My children, I feel no evil in this man. I believe he speaks the truth.”
Upheahric’s voice trembled as he opened his old mouth. “Then we must do as he says. We must build this stone church here in our own village, with our own hands.” He spread his hands out to them all as though offering bounty. “Let us send a messenger to ask the permission of the bishop, Thane Berhtic and his lord. Last market-day they were at the new abbey.”
“I’ll go!” Straelsith was already at the door, pulling his leather, wood-soled shoes tight against his feet. “I’ll go tonight, and ask an audience in the morning!” His eager face was flushed with excitement and his reed-like voice cut shrilly through the deeper tones of the older men. He flashed Aelfleda a grin as he hurried past her. She did not try to stop him – he would be safe enough; he was doing the Lord’s work. She folded her arms across her chest and watched his slender form disappear into the dark. Father Owain’s words had removed all fear for her. The old gods could not dare to lift a hand now. But Upheahric was not so comfortable with the boy’s departure.
“Straelsith!” he called out once in his shaky voice. But Straelsith did not hear the elder’s shout. One or two men made as if to try and follow him, but Upheahric waved his hands at them. “It’s most likely for the best,” he muttered to himself.
Godric seemed to be shuffling further and further from the circle of light, and Father Owain had just drawn in breath to speak again when Andred spoke out of the depths of his chest. “Why did you let the boy go? We haven’t talked this out to its end yet.”
Upheahric waved his hands again, but didn’t answer the thick-set old man. The other men looked at each other in surprise. It was well known that Andred disliked the priest for interfering with the old faith, but he didn’t often let his temper take control. Andred ran his tongue round his open mouth, exposing his worn-down teeth. He and Upheahric had grown up together, and it was plain that he expected an answer that would support him, not the new faith. Godric stopped moving. There was a pause. Father Owain spoke, his voice still calm. “What must we discuss, Andred? God has spoken.”
“You are not my kin, Father, and nor is he, warrior though he was.” Andred’s broad arm, crossed with pale scars, indicated Godric. “But, you’re my kin, Upheahric, as I am yours. Shouldn’t you hear what I have to say as well as the words of an anhaga and a Welshman?”
Godric flushed red. That word “anhaga”, lordless, kinless, untrustworthy wanderer, always made him furious. Father Owain clasped his hands sadly in front of him. Upheahric gazed at his cousin with wide eyes.
“He says take the stone from the old city. Is that a good idea, kinsman?”
For a moment they all carried on looking at him with expectant faces. But Andred suppressed his anger. He simply folded his massive arms across his chest and stared at Godric, who still kept his eyes on the floor, his muscles tense beneath his tunic.
Upheahric still did not speak. His mouth was set in a confused circle of old lips and grey hair. His eyes moved slowly from Andred to Godric and back again, unable to settle on one or the other. Murmurs began to rise around the group gathered around Father Owain.
At last Upheahric broke his silence. “Wh-what do you mean, cousin?” he pleaded. Andred did not answer. Upheahric’s face creased with doubt. “Do you mean, is it right for us to disturb the city just now, just as people are leaving Edricsham, or do you mean that we should not build the church at all?” Andred did not answer. “What do you mean, cousin?”
Father Owain saved the old man. He spread his thin hands out in front of him. “My children, I cannot believe that Andred would oppose something so wholly devoted to the glory of God. He can only mean the fears that all of us have known of the city, or what might be there.” Andred stared at him in disgust. “I assure you, as the Lord God is my witness, the building of this church will put evil to flight. Long ago, Ninian built a stone church in the land of the Picts, and he turned them from darkness to light. We have enough Godly men already, and with our church we will destroy the evil of the old stones and turn it to joy.”
The priest’s smile even took in Andred, something it rarely did, but the old fighter was unmoved. The distrust between them wouldn’t be dispersed so easily. He turned his back on them all and walked heavily out into the darkness. Aelfleda dared not look into his face. Instead she looked watched Father Owain, who still had the remnants of his smile lingering about his lips. He was talking in low tones to Upheahric. Behind the priest, Godric was pacing back and forth, pressing his lips together.
Gradually the noise and disturbance in the hall ended. The men of the village gathered in groups of three or four between Aelfleda and the heat of the fire. Behind her, she could hear the other women of the village putting their children to bed out of the thin drizzle that fell on her back and shoulders, and the unfree families making their way back to their huts on the edge of the village. She knew that all the women would be hurrying to find out what had happened as soon as their duties were over. She herself had neglected some work – some herbs had been lying waiting to be ground up while she listened at the door. But they would be no worse for having been ground in the morning. And there was no hope that she would find the escaped sow in the woods.
With one hand, Godric seized the end of the long low bench that ran along part of one wall and dragged it closer to the fire. When it was arranged just as he wanted it, he sat on the end that he had moved. The roundness of his figure was increased by his posture; he hunched up with his hands on his knees. Aelfleda knew that if, nervously, she crept up to him, she would see his lips moving in the shadow. Others had also seen his movements and touched their companions on the elbow or chest. Stillness spread under the high roof, made all the greater by the sound of the rain outside.
Despite the memory of his vision, Godric was still angry after Andred’s show of contempt for him. He was going to speak. How could he not when that old fool had reminded him of past misfortunes? The miserable events that had brought him here were always in his mind, and Andred’s cruelty had made him see them clearly again. His village in Mercia had been attacked by a British raiding party, and most of those who survived had been taken as slaves back to the hills. Godric and others who had escaped set off to try and free their families. The heathens had defeated them, and laughingly crucified his wounded thane while the Mercians watched from their hiding places. In the following years, Godric found himself alone, and so deprived of a place anywhere. No one would trust a man with no kin to speak for him – until he came to Ediscum, where they had neede a smith and could trust a fellow Christian.
Ever since that cursed word “anhaga” passed Andred’s lips, he had felt a need to speak again. They would listen, the good people of Ediscum, to the pain he had known, and they would welcome him to their breasts again, and he would no longer be anhaga, but one of their kin, one of their kin who would do great things for them and in this little folded land build something which would secure them in God’s kingdom. His whole body trembled at the thought.
By now they were gathering round him, men and women, in blues and reds and greens. The heat of their breath rolled over him and against that of the fire. Eyes were watching him from every corner of the hall, intent on every move of his head. But he did not look up. His eyes were fixed on hall’s packed earth floor, on two straws that seemed to form a cross, the cross of which he had been granted a glimpse. But he was not about to speak of the cross.
Aelfleda couldn’t take her eyes from him. Around her, every other eye was fixed on the figure of the smith, longing for him to open his mouth and draw them into the past, not so long ago, when there had been different gods and men built great cities of stone. They all knew that this was not a night in which Godric would be tempted by eager voices asking for his other tales of battles, of men and women, or of saints, and they were all the more fascinated. They could not tell which world he would draw them into. But Aelfleda watched only Father Owain.
As always when Godric bowed his head in thought, and not in prayer, the priest looked on disapprovingly. These poems, he said, had too much of the old ways in them; a priest must keep watch in case they drew men from the path of light. After all, it hadn’t been that many years since they were all worshipping devils, and it would be dreaful if they were tempted back. Aelfleda envied him his strength. Already Godric’s voice was tempting her with low, insistent rhythms – “Earth, hold you now, now warriors cannot, These noble things… Battle-death has taken daring deadly fighters”. She was watching Father Owain, but at the same time she stood beside the ancient anhaga, the last survivor, in his empty world where lord and kin were all as thin as shadows amongst the gloomy stones of the old city. She buried the useless gold with her own hands, and ached in longing for human comforts. But still she stared at the priest and his frown, afraid that he would see her face and know at once that she was still touched by the old ways.
It was late when Godric looked up at last and asked for a cup of ale. It was brought quickly. He drank as though drinking from their affection for him and looked around, moving his gaze through the circle of faces with their range of expressions. He knew them all so well; he loved them as though they were his own kin and this one, this face he saw standing at the back of the press of bodies, he loved more than the rest.
With Aelfleda by his side he would never again need to fear being turned out, forced to abandon Ediscum and make his slow way through the world, robbed again of kin, love and hope. She did not look at him, but stared at the priest. Godric, chastened, turned his eyes Father Owain, who shook his head.
“I’m sorry Father.”
These new words, spoken with a bright tone that had no trace of the hard insistence of the poem in them, broke the spell. Aelfleda heard them as though over a stretch of open field. She blinked, and felt the heat of the hall on her face again as though for the first time.
The group of villagers broke up and people began to leave. Among them, she saw Swefrith with to his sister, Leofa. Shaking off all her earlier dreaminess, she took a few paces forward and seized him by the blue cloak he wore over his tunic. He turned his deer-startled eyes towards her.
“Too busy to chase your pigs, but the market will wait for poetry will it?”
He laughed nervously and looked towards her right shoulder. “Well – I was nearly finished, and I heard the news, and I wanted to see if Godric did mean what I’d heard.”
Leofa smiled affectionately at her brother.
“We lost one of the pigs, Swefrith. She’ll farrow in the woods and the litter’ll be lost.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry Aelfleda. I’ll be more careful.”
Aelfleda looked at him without relaxing her angry face. Swefrith was always saying that his things were more important than anyone else’s. And then he was always frightened in case anyone punished him for it. He looked around hastily. “Aelfleda,” he whispered, running a finger down his lip and across his chin, “Did Godric really see a vision today? Will we have a stone church?”
“Father Owain says we will.”
“Is it wise? The people of Edricsham have left. I’m afraid – Ediscum is next nearest to the old place.”
“Listen to Father Owain.”
Leofa looked at both of them with wide eyes, waiting, as ever, for one of them to decide for her. “We don’t doubt Father Owain, Aelfleda,” she said, shaking her head so that her hair, not covered by a wife or widow’s cap, brushed across her shoulders. “No, but Swefrith – Swefrith wondered, he thought perhaps – perhaps Godric has been tricked, by, by –“
Aelfleda did not want to hear suggestions like that. They undermined Father Owain’s reassurances and revealed cold thoughts like haunted stones in her heart.
Leofa looked at Swefrith, whose face bore the grime of his day at the bellows. It was his idea to ask Aelfleda. She had nothing to say unless he did, so she absently played with the knot in her belt. His eyes examined Aelfleda, waiting for her reply. She had none other than the one she had given, so she stood in silence. Behind her, someone kicked at a log on the fire and a stream of brilliant cinders scattered over the inside of the hall like unheavenly stars. The cinders settled and night flooded in through the two ends of the building. Aelfleda hurried towards the open air, inwardly angry with herself, though there had been nothing more she could have said to Swefrith. Her own fears should not be revealed.
A bulbous moon peered through the cloud at the village. There was not enough light to see by, but she knew the way even in such wet, when her flat shoes could not grip the slippery earth. She took a roundabout route to avoid the smith’s hut. She did not like to meet Godric after dark, not even now, when, it seemed, God had pointed him out from the very heights of heaven. But even so she thanked God for the faith Godric and for the fact that even when he was lost and alone in the world, wandering through Mercia, Gwynnedd and Elmet, his kin all slain, his lord crucified by the heathens, he had not turned against the light. Now, she thought, under the watchful eyes of Father Owain, he would build God a house in return for the staff God had leant him in his times of trouble.

The morning was chilly and the muddy earth outside the hut was sticky after the rain. But for a short while Aelfleda had been enjoying the feeling there was no need to hurry to get work done. It still felt strange not to be up before dawn carding out wool from fleeces sheared the day before. After the carding would be the spinning, done with swollen fingers and with barely a moment for all the day’s other tasks, let alone food, until dark had fallen. And the men had had to weave, or stamp the wool in earth to dry it. For nearly a month it had seemed as though there would be nothing but wool until the Great Judgment. And now, with the traders gone and the fleeces not bought by them taken off to the markets around the abbeys, the day’s labour hardly seemed enough to fill the hours.
She had ground up the herbs she had left the night before and had measured them out in wooden beakers to be mixed into medicines beside her fire. It had been easy work, but despite what she felt there was always work to be done.
Aelfleda paused at the doorway to hang the dark cloak across the gap. It had been Oferslith’s, her husband, and it marked the division between all she had chosen to keep of his possessions and the rest of the village. It was always at this moment that she had regretted his death, though he had not been kind to her and, as a widow, a woman who had come into the posession of a man’s goods, she had profited by selling his forge and tools to Godric.
It felt as though as soon as Oferslith had died, she had developed these pains across her shoulders, in her hips, where the weight of her wound leather belt pressed on them, and in her ankles, as if his dying had made her old, though she was still of child-bearing age, as Godric had said more than once. He was right, and so it pained her all the more that it was so hard to pull her undertunic over her head. When she moved in the morning, the sluggishness of her joints reminded her of the way Erderinca, Andred’s wife, shuffled past the hall’s timber frames.
Erderinca did not hear Aelfleda’s greeting the first time. The old woman had a determined look in her watery eyes and her mouth was half-open, revealing the worn stumps of her teeth. Aelfleda was close enough to brush the thick wool of her old dress before she turned her head to speak to her. “You were right, Ederinca. We’d better bake more bread today.”
A look of terror crossed the wrinkled face. Then the old woman looked down and muttered quickly: “Very well. I’ll be along soon enough.”
Aelfleda looked at the heavy material of Erderinca’s hood, annoyed by the rough answer. But then out of the corner of her eye she saw Andred making his way through the village, heading for the other side of the hall. She drew her breath in sharply and moved her face down until it was on a level with the old woman’s. In a trembling voice she let out the sudden suspicion that gripped her. “You’ve betrayed Father Owain again!”
There was silence between them, and the sounds of the village, the bellows, the animals, the children’s protesting cries reminded Aelfleda that there was work to be done. But still she waited for an answer. There was none. Erderinca stepped to one side, the brooches fastening her dress shining in the rain, and began her slow shuffle again, her shoulder almost touching the wattle of the hall. Aelfleda turned to watch her go with tight, angry eyes.
She had prayed that the old people would forget the old sin now that the church was to be built. Straelsith wouldn’t have met much opposition at the new abbey. But the morning was drawing on. Most of the free men would be out in the Wood Field near the river, except for Godric and Swefrith, and the one or two herdsmen who would be looking out for lambing ewes. It was the sowing-time, when men would come back in the evenings sweating and weary, and wanting food. Aelfleda remembered her own husband coming home like that, though his was not from honest labour.
Bread had to be made. Aelfleda went to find Leofa.
She waited for a moment against the rough wall and the edge of the low roof as a woman and three chattering children who clung to the blue folds of her dress went by, and again as a group of men walked past, laughing, on their way to the fields. Each of them greeted her as they passed. Her mood brightened.
Leofa was watching Swefrith push down on his leather bellows with all his strength. There was a distant look in her eyes as she played absently with the elbow-length sleeves of her overdress. Aelfleda asked if she wanted to help with the baking, trying not to disturb Swefrith, whose eyes bulged at the effort in the thick heat. But he stopped as soon as he saw her and stepped over his bellows with a peculiar smile on his face. As he drew closer he extended his arm, clutching something, a gift, in his hand.
“Good morning, cousin,“ he said brightly. “I made this last Holy-month, but I never sold it. I’m sorry about the pig.”
Aelfleda couldn’t hold back a smile as she round herself holding a bright comb carved from a piece of cowhorn. Her kinsman and his love of little objects couldn’t make anyone angry for long, especially now, when his share of the wool had been traded for bright stone, soft metal and well-cured leather. She thanked him and he looked less frightened for a moment. She turned to Leofa face, who, as usual, was gazing at some dream. “Well, will you come?”
“Yes, if you think I can help.”
But Aelfleda couldn’t look away from Swefrith’s face, which he hadn’t yet wiped dry. The dampness irritated her – it wasn’t right – Swefrith was always careful about the arrangement of his face, hair and clothes. She glanced at him again, and as if he had been waiting for a sign, he began to talk again, babbling. He wound and unwound the end of the cloth binding on his arm with his other hand.
“Straelsith hasn’t come back yet. Do you think the bishop will not let us have the church built here?” His question ended on a pleading note.
Aelfleda sighed. She had been right, he wasn’t himself. “It’s only been two days. The thanes and the bishop have to think of things as well as us. Straelsith will be back soon enough. Thank you for this.”
She waved the comb at him, and smiled into his worried face. Leofa followed her out onto the mud between the huts. Aelfleda envied the young woman’s easy steps and the grace with which she pulled the hood of her red cloak over her bound hair to keep out the sharp breeze.

The flames roared up and broke against the stone of the forge with massive heat. Stripped to the waist in a cloud of pungent smoke, Godric plunged the first bar into the fire and waited for the metal to grow red and for sparks to begin rising out of the embers. His body still thrilled at the memory of last night’s dream, which was itself a memory of those blessed moments in the heart of the giants’ city when the Cross came to him. It was a good omen. Today would bring the permission of Thane Berhtic and the blessing of the bishop for the building of the church. Today this very pick he was about to make would cut into the earth on the site of the new church. The thought made him tremble, and the iron slipped in the forge. He controlled himself. God’s work took patience. The sound and the sight of the blazing forge blanked out everything else, so that when he realised that there was another person amongst the smells and materials of his trade, he started, almost thinking that another vision was upon him. But Stanmode couldn’t easily be mistaken for an angel.
“It’s you is it, you old wool gatherer? Wait a moment.”
Carefully, he pulled the iron from the flames and lowered it slowly into a leather bucket of river water. The iron – or the water, he was never sure which – let out a shriek and more swirling clouds rose up into the dark recess of the red-lit roof. Godric was vaguely disappointed that Stanmode hadn’t even flinched at the meeting of the metal and the water. Children had run away in tears at the sound. He wasn’t proud of that, but it would have been interesting to startle Stanmode. He came outside and stood blinking in the daylight before his naked shoulder gave a shudder at the cold and he turned to his visitor.
“I’ve come to see you about building it.”
He nodded slowly at Stanmode’s gruff words. He wasn’t surprised to see his visitor. Stanmode often spent his mornings praying with Father Owain, and he spoke out against the heathens even more than the priest did. “If you still think you can do it. This isn’t something a man can take up easily.”
“What do you think I think?” Stanmode took two paces forward, the bound cloths on his legs shaking along with his muscles. He swung his coarse hands up until they struck the corner of Godric’s hut where the roof joined the wall. The interlocking beams cracked out in protest and a tiny shudder seemed to spread out across the walls. But the force of the blow did no damage. Stanmode put his hands out, still together, in front of Godric. There was a piece of straw from the low thatch between his wide thumbs. Around the grey stick of grass blood was beginning to ooze up from raw wounds. Godric looked up from the hands to the other man’s scowl-set face. A strange smile raised his upper lip, exposing flat white teeth.
“Why did you do that?” Godric shook his head.
“Because I built it. I fastened that joint myself. They always ask me when they want wood fixing. I can build. I’d rather build than sit and shear sheep or wear my feet out behind a plough. I can do anything in wood. Stone though – stone’s different. I can learn it, though. And I want a church here. That cross isn’t good enough.”
Godric followed Stanmode’s gaze with his eyes. The cross under which Father Owain preached was almost hidden by the roofs that straggled round in a long line towards the fields and the river. The top of it still managed to stand out against the sky. The image of it remained in Godric’s eyes when he blinked. “It’s not so bad,” he muttered. Then he turned back to Stanmode. “I’m glad your faith is so strong.”
“Not like some peoples’,” Stanmode hissed through his teeth. He bent down close to Godric’s face and nodded to his right. Andred and Erderinca had emerged from their hut, the last one before the buildings gave way to the animal-dotted common grazing land and the forest. They were both looking towards the broad green line of trees that marked the edge of Thane Berhtic’s hide land and the beginning of the swine-woods. Andred’s powerful hand rested on Erderinca’s hunched shoulders. Then their bodies separated. Godric clasped his hands and looked away again towards the black cross above the grey roofs. As he did so he caught sight of Stanmode’s face. The builder’s eyes were fixed firmly on the cloaked back of the man who had spoken out against Godric’s vision, against the building of the stone church. His massive hands, still dripping blood, were tightly clenched by his sides.

Aelfleda’s fingers ached from kneading the grey-flecked dough, and grains of stone and earth were stuck under her nails. There was a dull pain at the base of her neck and she couldn’t help looking toward the fields visible through the entrance of the hut in the hope of seeing some of the men returning wanting something to eat. That would mean a pause from the repetitive pressing, folding and rolling, a chance to straighten her painful knees. She knew that Leofa was also glancing that way as she sorted grains of wheat from the chaff. Even the unfree woman, Cnapa, seemed to be waiting as she laboured, sweating, at keeping the flames away from the baking bread in the centre of the hut.
But even as Aelfleda looked, the thoughts that had distracted her from the pain all morning returned and tautened in her brow. She supposed that Edricsham would be empty by now. All the stragglers would have followed their kinfolk to the new village. It was hard to make such a move at any time of the year. But it was all for the best, if they had left behind the sickness-ridden ground and air.
Aelfleda could remember years of sickness in Ediscum, when strong men and children had been carried off, and neither the old gods nor the new saints had been able to keep them alive. One year had taken her father and mother, and those of Swefrith and Leofa. Her brother had also gone, to fight the Mercians and Picts and to earn his living at Thane Berhtic’s side. When that had happened there had only been the new faith to support her, but Father Owain had made sure that it did.
And there was better trade to be had, Edricsham’s people said, up there by the new abbey. Their eyes would be looking open wide over the shoulder of the person they were talking to. That person would also look that way, expecting something to have come out of the mist or thin rain. Some of them said that Tiw’s honour had been spat on now that men knelt before the cross, and that to set foot between the stones of the city was to ensure that pestilence would spread throughout the kin.
She turned to Erderinca’s hunched figure, which was half-concealed in the shadow around the grey light from the door. The cloak that served for a curtain was wrapped round her shoulders and the blue of it was a sharp contrast with her skin. Short gasps escaped her as she pressed her weight onto the pestle, grinding the wheat below it was ground in the mortar. Leofa had suggested to Aelfleda that Cnapa might do this hard work, but Erderinca had picked up the mortar without listening. Making flour had been her job for forty of her fifty winters. Leofa looked at Aelfleda, but neither of the argued.
But it was not the pain visible in Erderinca’s shoulder that concerned Aelfleda, it was the memory of meeting her in the morning. A few years ago, in the swine-woods not far from the giants’ city, she had seen the marks of villagers from Edricsham who had worshipped Rheda in the old way in winter-time. They had used the blood of swine and goats. She had not forgotten her fear of those burned animal bodies. There in that tiny glade, with the first sun of the year on her back, she pressed her hand to the centre of her chest and took hold of the smooth stone that had been her mother’s. She prayed in terror. All the power of the new God had felt stripped away and she had not known who the prayers were for. Now, sitting near Erderinca, she could almost smell the stale burnt fat again, almost feel the presence of whisperers and watchers who hid in the folds of an oak leaf. Erderinca and Andred must have marked the start of Eostre’s month this morning. Perhaps she had also offered something to Tiw, to make him keep his claws off Ediscum.
She dug her fingers into the dough in a convulsive movement, before dragging them out and pressing her now sticky hands to her chest, trying to feel that smooth stone again, though its leather strap had snapped a long time ago.
“Aelfleda! Are you all right?”
She turned, startled, at the quavering voice. Erderinca’s face on its wrinkled, drooping throat seemed to be horribly, temptingly close. Aelfleda shut her eyes and coughed once or twice. “I’m all right,” she managed to say.
“Go outside.” said Leofa, half wheedlingly, as though afraid of telling her elder what to do. “You might be too close to the fire.”
Aelfleda nodded and tightness spread through her nose and head, just as it did on feast days. She got to her feet and struggled outside, leaning on the wattle walls for support. The rain rushed through her dress and undertunic to her skin and cooled her body and refreshed her head, though the sleeves of her undertunic clung to her arms. She pulled at her belt to ease its weight. For a while, she stood still, feeling all the pains in her body and making them greater with concentration. If she was to be punished for her thoughts, let it be this, and let it be over.
Then her body stiffened and she turned her head this way and that, trying to catch the sound clearly. She had heard it before, this low drumming on the ground, but not for a long time. She looked along the curving line of the village towards the woods, then back over the pointed thatches towards the grazing fields. But the sound was not there – it was not coming from the direction of the hall either, though beyond that was the straightest road from the village. She placed it at last and turned towards the river. A horse was cantering between the huts on its bank, its head held high and a bright bridle across its mouth. Its saddlecloth with its fine mix of dyes was dripping wet, and the deep brown legs of the animal were gleaming with river water. The two men who rode on its back were soaked to the knees as well, and their feet bounced against the horse’s flanks. Sparkling sprays fell from the hide of their shoes. From where she stood, Aelfleda could see that the one who rode in front carried a sword in his belt whose pommel and scabbard shone with bright metal. Such a weapon was as strange to her eyes as the great animal its owner rode. She could see Streamas the fisherman running as fast as he could behind the newcomers to keep the creature in view. No horses, no beasts of war, had been seen in the village since –
“Aelfleda!” Aethelsunne cried, and threw himself off the horse. With his heavy sword swinging at his hip he ran across the muddy earth. As villagers ran to stare at the mighty animal, Thane Berhtic’s loyal retainer joyfully wrapped his arms around his sister.

“Brethren of Ediscum, we have been granted a blessing on this earth that none of us are worthy of. Even in my times in the Frankish lands, when I had the ears of the holiest men of that country, I never dared hope that God would look so kindly on me. Some have said that it is through my presence that we have been so blessed, but the truth is that God’s ways are mysterious and it is not fit for us to ask Him why we have been chosen. But the vision that has come amongst us must be given all our devotion. It is not easy to build something from hard stones, and there are many obstacles in our way.
“It is not so long since heathen men defiled this part of God’s earth. Evil is here still, and the devil’s work has driven our neighbours from Edricsham. Evil is here too in Ediscum. You, Swefrith, are its unwitting helper when you doubt God’s vision and ask me behind your hand if perhaps Godric has seen a spirit from the old time that seeks to lead him from the right way as the serpent did to Eve in the Garden. You too, Andred, who fold your arms and lift your proud head and oppose our Church without saying why. There are others too, I know, who do not speak their thoughts aloud. But this writ brought by our prodigal son, Aethelsunne, from the holy bishop, permits God’s work to be done. I have it here in my hand and I have seen the holy seal.
“Evil will be beaten and driven out by the great thing we have been called upon to do. I am your kinsman now, and even you, Andred, will see at last, when mass is held in the stone church, that we are all one before Christ’s divine Grace. There will be temptation and setbacks before then, but the time will come when we shall all be in harmony before our own rich altar.”
So ran the thoughts of Father Owain as he stood in an attitude of prayer before the high cross. Mass had been celebrated to mark Aethelsunne’s return and the granting of the bishop’s permission, and he had wanted to say what was in his mind while the people had been gathered. But even before he turned from the cross to his congregation some had already gone off into the evening’s growing dark. That had troubled him, though he knew there was a feast to prepare and the rain was cold. Every part of his body was pressed by the chilly cloth of his robes. He wanted to bless them all in the great project, but the devil was at work early, before the first sod of earth had been turned, and people were turning against faith and Godric’s vision.
Godric’s vision… it was a sign he’d been waiting for ever since he’d chosen to come back to Britain. All those souls that needed guiding had drawn him back, and he’d done his best. They didn’t try to worship Christ and the devils at the same time any more, and Andred was not respected as he had been. But this was different. The excitement darted from place to place in his body, his knees, his stomach, his hands. Godric had had the vision, but Owain would be the shepherd who brought them all to security in heaven. He was God’s instrument – he would lead them all away from the edge of the shadow!
He pulled his robes higher onto his shoulders and prayed briefly and fervently before walking from the image of God’s Cross towards the smith’s hut. Godric and Stanmode had been talking all day, even before the news had come from the new abbey. They had paced to and fro, looking for the best spot on which to build, and had even been seen going to Streamas’ hut to borrow his fishing boat to cross the river and go up towards the city. Now, in the near-dark while the free men gathered in the mead-hall and women and unfree men turned spits and made stews, the fire in the smithy lit a part of the earth with a deep red and the sound of metal on hot metal still alternated with the heaving of the bellows. Father Owain approached slowly, unexpectedly unwilling to be seen even by the children visiting the smithy on such a night as this. He remembered Andred’s suspicion that neither he nor Godric could be fully trusted because neither of them were from the kin of the village. But he wanted to talk to Godric before the tools he was making. Father Owain wanted to be able to give his blessing to what Godric had chosen.
The heat of the furnace was greater than he had expected and he stopped short in the low doorway, his hand raised to protect the skin of his face almost in a gesture of absolution. He paused there for a moment, as Stanmode had done earlier in the day, and took in the scene. It seemed almost infernal. In the close air of the hut, which smelt of sweat and smoke and unnatural hot metal, Godric’s arms, with moisture flying off them in patterns that echoed those of the sparks spraying in constant light-rivers from the metal, worked continually, their muscles quivering with every impact of the hammer on the solid flame of the tool he was fashioning. To the thin Father Owain the display of physical power was astonishing. He made as if to speak to the endlessly shifting image, but he dared not speak loudly enough. Godric’s eyes were transfixed by the hot glare of the metal in his hand and his head did not turn. At last Father Owain subsided and let the intensity of the sound made by the clash of solid on molten press him into a corner not far from the door. Each strike of the hammer stabbed into his ears with the force of a thunderclap on one of the starving days of summer and he realised that his body was trembling with fear in the quiet between each crash. He began to make out sounds behind the quick movements of Godric’s lips. Words… those heathen tales he would not stop telling – “Sad, hall-less I sought a treasure-giver… no wound gold… no good homeland…”
Even amidst his awe at the smith’s fire-lit image, Father Owain recognised the words. It was a tale that Godric told only on his least cheerful nights. It was about loss of kin and all that was dear. But at that moment the clamour of the hammering ceased. Father Owain leapt with fear as the water and the metal met and white steam billowed out, but he looked with pity at the man who had been chosen by God.
As he looked up from his handiwork, Godric saw the unsteady figure of the priest, whose hands moved up and down at his sides as though seeking a hiding place.
“I’m sorry, Father,” he grunted, being civil to the holy man despite his unsociable mood. “I don’t see people when I’m working.”
“That’s all right, my son. I didn’t wish to disturb you, though you seemed troubled.” Father Owain paused to give himself time for his voice to recover some sort of calm. Godric looked at him under frowning eyebrows. The silence lengthened and Father Owain felt an urge to soothe the anguish he believed he saw in the other man’s eyes. “God will wash away all tears,” he said softly.
Godric nodded slowly. “Thank you Father.”
A short laugh choked in Father Owain’s throat. “I only spread the Word,” he said, feeling his hot face grow hotter. “I don’t need thanks for that.”
Godric watched the priest’s hands clap excitedly together in front of him. Father Owain was shaking again, but from a different feeling. “Surely it’s time for the feast to begin.”
“It is, and I must go to the hall. But I came to ask what you decided with Stanmode.”
“It wasn’t easy,” said Godric, speaking more freely now that the conversation had taken a more practical turn. “Stanmode wants to take a whole archway from the city and rebuild it to hold up the roof. We’ll have to float it all down the river, and Streamas will have to make us boats.”
Father Owain nodded.
“Still, we have chosen a place to build on.”
“Where?” The hands were unfolded, excited again.
“By the river, where the beeches and willows will shelter it. I’ll show you tomorrow, when it’s light.”
“It is almost as though it is already built!”
“It will take a long time, Father.”
“I know, but when it is done we will have vanquished all the evil that surrounds us here!”
Godric smiled and felt the weariness in the muscles of his face. “You are too good for us, Father.”
“No, no, we are all blessed!… But I must go to the feast.” Father Owain withdrew his excitement into himself and he adopted a posture of holy reserve, though his eyes still shone in the fiery glow from the forge. “Will you come with me?”
“Not now, Father. I can’t leave these flames or the devil will get into them. I’ll come when I’ve finished up.”
As the priest hurried out towards the ever-moving brightness of the hall and the bustle of the coming celebrations, Godric stood with his hand resting on the warm fold of the curtain to one side of the doorway. There was a smile on his crumpled face. It faded as he turned back into the heavy fog of smoke that lingered in the smithy. Alone again he could not help remembering the events that had driven him into his work-frenzy. The fruits of it were beautiful – digging tools with smooth curved edges that would slide through earth at the slightest weight, and one or two chisels that could be used on the giants’ stones – but the shame and anger that had provoked it still rankled like sore skin inside his skull.
He knelt by the fire and picked up a pair of long tongs he had had since he had first become a smith. Their familiar touch soothed him as though they were the hands of his old, long-dead kinsmen. He picked out a few of the larger embers. But even this comfort couldn’t lessen the strength of his feelings.
His heart had sunk late that morning. He and Stanmode had been standing arguing in the glade of trees. Godric had instantly believed the place to be the right one to build the chruch. He’d felt a sensation of rushing joy in his hands, chest, knees and feet as he breathed in the cool damp air under the shelter of trees whose buds seemed about to break out from brown to fresh green at any moment. Their branches cracked in a breeze, but he stood in utter calm with long grass brushing his ankles. Perhaps it was the fact that he worked in his hot cell that made him so aware of the Godliness of the glade; perhaps God had given him a sign again. Whatever the cause, he had known that the stones of the city would find their final rest there beneath the gently swaying limbs of the trees. Stanmode had wanted to go closer to the bank, and further along, but he had given way in the end.
But the calm was all too brief. They had both turned their heads at the sound of a horse. They had seen it ford the river and had run after it back into Ediscum because only great news would be carried by such a beast. There they learned of the return of Aelfleda’s brother and his heart had given a great leap and fallen away, leaving his chest, which had been filled with contentment, aching and empty. Aethelsunne was here, and while he remained there was no hope of Aelfleda paying any heed to his interest in her.
Still, he managed to greet the thane’s man in the right manner and stifled his disappointment enough to go with Stanmode to the old city…
He had been afraid that he might see something there that would damage his belief in what he had seen before, but his dispute with Stanmode about whether to move the arch had distracted him. On his return, Swefrith had seen him.
“Did you find anything of use out there?”
“Use? It’s all useful in God’s eyes.” He meant to go on but the hesitation in Swefrith’s face made him keep his words in his mouth. The younger man seemed to be looking round him, not at him, his eyes peering over this shoulder or that, then seeing some point on his chest or on the clasp of his wide belt before moving on again.
“Your belief’s strong.”
Godric had stepped away from Swefrith and watched his slender hands feeding each other with a metal brooch they’d made. Each one was desperate to take hold of it again as soon as it gave it up.
“I must go on with my work,” Godric had grunted at last.
“There will be a feast tonight – in Aethelsunne’s honour.”
Godric nodded and walked away quickly to hide his discomfort. He glanced once over his shoulder and saw Swefrith still standing in the same place, his arms working still, showing that the frantic movements of his hands hadn’t stopped. He still stared in the direction from which Godric had come. The smith felt a small quiver of uneasiness in his back. He reached his smithy without meeting anyone else, and stoked up the furnace to begin again what he had started that morning. As he pressed his weight onto the bellows, the unexpected sound of voices nearby caught his ear – he wasn’t yet so deep in his work that he couldn’t hear others. Upheahric and, that man-dog, Andred. Andred was speaking, sharply, angrily.
“This is an insult to use all! Strangers, one of them an anhaga, come about here selling their dreams, and everyone forgets what they owe to their kin!”
“Andred, I… Father Owain is a man of God…” Up heahric mumbled, unable to speak up.
“Since Owain came here, everything’s been forgotten except what he wants you to remember. I’ve been silent while I’ve been insulted, and Erderinca’s been laughed at by the children, for years I’ve listened and not been angry with my kinsmen. But this is too much. What should we have? A village with stocks to last us till harvest, or one that starves because the men spend all day following the dreams of a stranger?”
“perhaps it would be right… not blood spilt between kinsmen… ask… but the church-“
“These are just dreams!”
At that moment the tongs fell from Godric’s hand with a clatter, and an ember rolled in a blazing trail across the floor. He moved instinctively to stop it burning anything and thrust it back into the flames. When he straightened up, Andred’s voice had gone and he could only hear meaningless murmurs from Upheahric’s old mouth. Upheahric often chattered to himself when he thought he was alone.
When the alarm caused by the falling ember was over, Godric’s body demanded to be given more action, to go out as it would have done in Mercia, in Elmet and even here in Berenicia, armed and ready to strike down all and any men but especially those who stood in the way of the church – yes, even that doubter Swefrith – but especially Andred –
Only the concentration of his thoughts on his vision kept him still. But the great energy of his anger had to be given some vent. He turned back to the tools he would make for the church of the village of his kinsmen.
He stood in the door of his smithy again, gazing across the dark village to the shifting bulk of the hall and the shadows that flitted across it. The raised voices and sounds of cold metal meant that the feast was beginning. In the endless space around that shifting patch of light, the night sounds of the swine-woods were silenced. There was only the faint bleating of sheep left out grazing. But that noise was nothing when compared with the distance between it and the next gathering of men. He shuddered and took his hand from the solidity of the doorpost. That abandoned feeling was too familiar, too close to the one he remembered well from his journeys in the middle kingdoms. He hurried from his dark hut to the hall.

Aethelsunne kicked his feet through the grey reeds that covered the floor below the bench. There was an air of expectancy that had calmed the riotous conversation of the early evening. The smell of roasting meat wafted under the high peak of the roof and drowned the smell of the sweating bodies, and the free men waited with cups of ale for the shawled women to bring in the dishes. In the pause while Upheahric – grown much more grey in the last few winters – looked round with a friendly eye at the shoulders that lined each bench and brushed against each other, Aethelsunne picked up his own cup and gazed at it as it rolled in the palm of his hand. It was magnificently made, though only of beech wood. The smoothness and shapeliness of it seemed to increase the temptation of drinking from it. He had seen finer cups than this at his thane’s side, with more decoration perhaps, but few that were better made. Swefrith had taught himself his father’s old skills, and Aethelsunne had seen him trying to examine the workmanship of the sword at his hip. He would speak to him properly when he could.
Upheahric leaned over to him. “The kinsmen of Ediscum are proud to welcome you to your home.”
Aethelsunne smiled and tipped the last of his ale down his throat. He wiped his lips with warm fingers and looked out again over the long table that extended down the hall. The women entered again, carrying wide wooden bowls. He knew all these faces well despite his absence, but the recognition was not always joyful. After the first delight of meeting her again, he had been shocked by the years in his sister’s face. They had come quickly since her husband Oferslith had died, unfaithful half-heathen though he was. Looking out over the faces he had known from his cradle, he saw that time had touched everyone. Even Stanmode, who had built most of Ediscum as he knew it, seemed weaker, more prone to frowning. And yet the timber and the wattle of his houses looked the same! Within the time it took a bird to swoop from here to the Cross, he could have put his finger through the gap between two hazel rods at the far end of this hall. He had seen his first meeting of the village, one about the new smith Godric, through that hole before his mother had caught him. Only Andred remained unchanged as the seasons had gone round him, with his huge scar-crossed arms folded on his chest, and his head firmly set. But men no longer looked at him with respect. They turned their eyes away, pretending he was not there until his back was turned. No-one spoke to him.
Upheahric leaned over to him again. “ We are proud of you, our kinsman.”
This time Aethelsunne could not conceal his embarrassment by drinking. This was the fourth, perhaps the fifth repetition of the same thing. Upheahric was often forgetful in his old age – this was bad enough given his place as the oldest man in Ediscum – there was a tone in each phrase that Aethelsunne did not like, though he couldn’t say what it was. Perhaps it was those words “kinsman” and “kinsmen”. The old man’s voice seemed to hover most on them as though he wanted Aethelsunne to notice. Aethelsunne had, and he had clearly seen the old man’s weakness when compared with the strength of his thane.
But his sister had appeared at his elbow, smiling and offering him another cup, larger this time, which gave off the hot scent of mead. She watched him proudly as he took a long draught. He smiled back, looking at her eyes, which at that moment did not look old. The strangeness of it all struck him as she went back into the shadows at the corner of the hall. His own sister was serving him in the hall at a feast in his own honour! It was a long time since his mother had turned her to the wall and died and his hands had not been strong enough to make her look him in the face again. He was glad that the memory hadn’t stopped him coming home to this welcome. Food was brought, hot meat flavoured with rosehips. Aethelsunne ate eagerly.
As he wiped his hands on the cloth on his legs, he noticed that a new face had appeared at the far end of the table – Godric. The smith was only just visible between the twin rows of moving chins and the women’s hands as they leaned over their kinsmen’s shoulders. Godric was brought food but he didn’t eat with the same pleasure as the others. Aethelsunne watched with interest. This man had troubled his sister, but he had been an exciting teller of tales – and now he was a man marked by the holy Cross. Aelfleda had been happy at the thought of the church. The smith’s bowed head didn’t seem capable of bearing so much interest, and Aethelsunne was uncomfortably aware that Upheahric was welcoming him again, in the same terms as before. But the old man’s mumbled phrases were broken into by a violent cry.
“Not eating at Aethelsunne’s return! Stranger, you shame us by being here!”
For an instant, Aethelsunne’s hand hovered at his hip, over his sword. All eyes were on Godric. Aethelsunne could see Aelfleda standing at the entrance to the hall with her hand on her chest.
Godric’s hands rested flat on the surface of the table. His rounded shoulders were still, but braced as though he was facing into a gale.
“What are you saying about God’s chosen man?” The voice was almost as loud as Andred’s. Stanmode was also on his feet, his hand also clenched across his chest, his head thrown back, a furious light in his eyes.
“I’m speaking against a man who has already lost one lord and broken one kin, and is plotting to do it again.”
“You’re blaspheming!” Another shout, with a foreign tongue behind it. Father Owain, beside Uphearic, was as red as Aethelsunne’s cloak. The thane’s man could see droplets bursting out of the priest’s mouth. Father Owain’s anger overwhelmed him and he beat the table with his fists, unable to speak, his eyes running with tears, his jaw set his stark lines. “You blaspheme! You blaspheme!” he stammered out at last. “Evil must go!”
All the men ran to the sides of the hall and turned to stand watching. One of the unfree women wailed briefly, but everyone was watching the figures in the middle of the hall.
Stanmode was moving, leaping over the wide table, scattering Swefrith’s plates and cups, meat that had taken years of feeding, ale that the village had kept a long time, his feet slipping along the smooth grain of the wood. He hurled himself at the old fighter, who had taken a pace back from the bench. Then Stanmode was falling, clutching at his face, and Andred was facing the twisted face of Father Owain with anger-sharp eyes.
“This is your God’s work!” he roared.
By now Stanmode had regained his feet, and seemed to be steeling himself for another assault. Andred began to circle him like a wolf, staring hungrily at the heavy arms and wide chest.
“Kinsmen! Stop! In the name of God! Kinsmen!”
Upheahric’s feeble voice couldn’t reach the circling men. Aethelsunne glanced at the elder and saw the agony in the old man’s eyes as his mouth flapped open and shut around the worn-down teeth. Upheahric’s hands were grey and brown, and curled up towards the sky like oak leaves in the Blood-month.
Aethelsunne drew his sword and laid the naked steel out of the table. The sound of it against the wood reached the fighting men and their eyes left each other to stare at the torches’ red glare reflected from the steel blade. They dropped their fighting stance and stepped apart. Aethelsunne breathed a sigh of relief. He hated brawls.
“Kinsmen,” he said, laying heavy stress on Upheahric’s word. “We’ll start building the church tomorrow. It will be hard work. Let’s sit down again.”
He sat down. After a moment or two, other men sat on the benches again without eagerness, trying to place themselves on the dry places between where the wasted food had been spilt. Some of them handed overturned bowls to the white-faced women who moved worriedly up and down beside them.
Andred, his head still proudly high, stalked out into the darkness. Stanmode followed after a few moments, one hand against his face to hide the red swelling his enemy’s fist had given him. Godric still sat, but well apart from the other men. Gradually, at the bottom end of the hall, they began to murmur amongst themselves again, and more food was brought. Aelfleda went through the ritual of bringing her brother’s drink a third time, but now the pride in her eyes was gone. Aethelsunne sat in silence, not looking to his right, where Upheahric and Father Owain both sat without speaking, each engulfed in misery.